Posted: 04 Mar 2007 02:45 pm Post subject:

John wrote:

I know in the past we talked of the IWW being an industrial union minus the political aspect. However, as to what Marx wrote here, I wonder if mearly negociating wages is enough. Only a portion of workers are unionized and with enough effort they maintain the given value of labor and reinforces their condition of selling their commodity of labor power. Sure, they tell their union brothers and sisters that the ultimate aim is the abolition of the wage system....

dave writes :

I do not give them even that. I don't see them telling anybody that, do you?

"Here you'll find just about all you'll need to join the IWW labor union and begin organizing your workplace to build the "One Big Union" in your community." (Home page of IWW)

Also from the mission statement, all very vague stuff:

+++++++
Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
+++++++++++

Particularly the main action suggested is work stoppage.

I just do not see it. I truly wish that I could.

Posted: 04 Mar 2007 10:03 pm Post subject:

dave writes :

I do not give them even that. I don't see them telling anybody that, do you?

"Here you'll find just about all you'll need to join the IWW labor union and begin organizing your workplace to build the "One Big Union" in your community." (Home page of IWW)

Personally, I've never met a IWW person in my life. The closest one would be in Albany, NY but they never managed to make a presence in Western New York, Northern PA or Northeast Ohio. Do they tell their membership, other than the website, that the ultimate aim is abolution of the wage system? I don't know. But as far as I see is that they negociate wages and benefits and have a lot of departments for various trades. If I may quote Marx here for once: "At the same time, and quite apart form the general servitude involved in the wages system, the working class ought not to exaggerate to themselves the ultimate working of these everyday struggles. They ought not to forget that they are fighting with effects, but not with the causes of those effects; that they are retarding the downward movement, but not changing its direction; that they are applying palliatives, not curing the malady. Don't get me wrong...I believe he was saying that we should try to improve our income condition but we also have to change direction to bring about a cure.

Beyond seeking better wages and benefits I don't see any plan of action that the union would do in owning the means of production. The mission statement is vauge. They want to organise workers for a stoppage but nothing is said on what function the union plays in each department when it comes to work. Where is the administration? Also, without some sort of measure for labor in each product produced how can they withdraw those products without knowing if there is too much or too little. The IWW will not be using the TLV if wages are abolish. They think it is another form of wages.

Another thing we have talked about is that the IWW is against aligning itself with a political organization but its members are free to conduct themselves in any political manner they chose. But De Leon wrote: That the political party of labor is bound to carry into the political arena the sound principles of the economic organization which it reflects,... The bogus reflects the bogus he goes on to say. He was refering to a sentence that Marx wrote when both economic and political are taking on the capitalist system.

John T

Posted: 04 Mar 2007 11:54 pm Post subject:

Is it fair to say that the IWW is a form of industrial union meaning that they may be a step above the trade unions? It was strange to hear Barbara Erenriech (today on BookTV) come out in support of those unions who are quick to maintain their relations with the bosses and maintain capitalism except for health care, education, ect. Whatever.

Since I've been looking more carefully into De Leon writings (got a load of PDF files) I was impressed that he came up with the term industrial government. However, the SIU remains a concept which means it has yet to become a reality. If it comes into being it has to have more than just a mission statement but the actual structual function of that industrial government in which democratic policies are in place for the election of administrators and the software ready to go for TLV's for production to continue and for the exchange of commodities. Like it or not we still need people who would be voted in--as leader--who are able to do administrative functions. Another thing to consider...does the SIU form the political party of labor after it comes into existence? Well, there is one that does exist but the SIU remains an organization of the mind.

I understand why we need to get people educated about the SIU. We also have to realise that there is coming a time when the actual principles, premable, laws, and by laws will have to written and voted upon in the formation of the SIU. I don't think it can be done over the internet alone but the internet would sure serve in communications between workers and those interested much in the same way as teleconferences. If I've been reading things correctly the SIU will have a voted upon structure and departments as to what orders are filled, shipped and keeping account of inventory. I don't know if economic planning would have to be done or if councils would have to be elected. But it would seem as if the social stores would indicate what would be produced--what foods people like, types of furniture, etc.

Is anarchy a pop culture thing like the hippes were in the 60's? Seems like a lot of kids are in to it today. On the other hand, I did read that anarchist will work with unions but after their revolution the union(s) will be brought to an end. They oppose all religions and beliefs and will destroy them.

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 10:33 am Post subject:

I think the IWW would be on the right track if they would do these two easy-to-accomplish things:

(1) They need to make it plainer and more visible that they oppose capitalism. Sure, among each other, they sign their letters like "For the works, Joe" - an abbreviation for their mutual understanding that the workers should take over the whole works. But publicly, it's obscure. From a cursory visit to to their web site, without reading deeper into their publications, one would not have a hint that they are against capitalism. About two years ago a well-intentioned journalist looked at their web site and then reported in a published article that they seem to have only one somewhat radical idea, that being the adoption of shorter work week.

(2) They need to come right out and say -- and this is something that many of their own members don't even understand, and the SLP also doesn't understand -- that they are not formally an anarchist organization, that they leave the choice of political party affiliation, if any, up to each individual, just as religious affiliation is left up to each individual, so that socialist party members may join the union, and anarchists may also join the union. Their frequent published remarks that emphasize the limitations of electoral politics, remarks which are correct if taken in proper context, create the impression that they are all anarchists, and this is the source of the SLP's misconception as well. However, once every so many years, it seems, the general secretary will have a short paragraph in their paper which explains the actual position. That's not sufficient, to produce a misconception continuously, and then on a rare occasion append a clarification of the subject.

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 03:31 pm Post subject:

My remarks on anarchy were an after thought. However Mike, you and Dave have differing opinions on the IWW. But what I was trying to convey is the function of the union after the revolution--if there is ever one. Right now, all I see is organizing tactics and negociation on wages and benefits but nothing on how the union would operate afterwards. There is no hint of an industrial form of government which makes me wonder if they actually are considering an anarchy type of volunteerism and disband the union altogether.

John

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 04:00 pm Post subject:

The answer to that, John, is that each IWW member has his or her own preference about the shape of future administration, they are never polled on their views when they join, and if they discuss it it's informally in a private setting.

As of the first few decades of the 20th century, the slogans from the IWW preamble were considered literal: "It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized not only for the every-day struggle with capitalists but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old."

It's easy to see the similarity with De Leon's comment: "Industrial unionism is the socialist republic in the making; and the goal once reached, the industrial union is the socialist republic in operation. Accordingly, the industrial union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself."

Therefore, as of the early days, similar goal, different strategies. Today, who knows. It would be nice to see the two factions at least talking to one another, without it immediately degenerating into "your great-great-grandfather was unfair to my great-great-grandfather", which it usually does.

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 04:32 pm Post subject:

I can agree that each person has their own preference as to what the future society would be and that is evident on rev-left. However, if the SIU was to be formed then we pretty much would know that the administration of things would be done through the industrial union being the industrial government of the republic of labor that De Leon envisioned. But the IWW is a different story. This may leave the door open for the authoritarians to take over through political means. I have read De Leon before but this time around I understand what he mean't by: That the political party of labor is bound to carry into the political arena the sound principles of the economic organization which it reflects,...

We could interpret that the people of the SIU build the union and build a political party at the same time knowing that the political arm is a department of the union subject to the the rank and file. I don't know if that is legal or not in the U.S. However, the SLP exist without a SIU and we have an industrial union without a political party. I find that weird.

I know De Leon wrote: Industrial unionism is the socialist republic in the making; and the goal once reached, the industrial union is the socialist republic in operation. Accordingly, the industrial union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself. But my question is does the IWW see itself as the socialist republic in the making or would it disband itself and the membership become work volunteers? I don't see any plan of action (as to economics) to suggest it would continue on as a union after the revolution. Free association of producers is a vauge term since there is no explaination on how it would funtion on a local, state and national level? For now boundries are used as location.

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 09:39 pm Post subject:

John: -- "... does the IWW see itself as ..."

When I wrote "each person has their own preference" I didn't mean it in the sense that each person is entitled to their own preference, contributes their own thoughts, etc. I meant it in the sense that the IWW doesn't seem to want to take a clear stand on such things, as though the vagueness were part of the plan.

Perhaps they just want the maximum number of membership applicants to be eligible to join. That itself is a good thing, but if it means not having a clear goal then what's it all for?

"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." --- Seneca the Younger, ancient Roman philosopher

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 09:54 pm Post subject:

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 09:58 pm Post subject:

Mike--Perhaps they just want the maximum number of membership applicants to be eligible to join. That itself is a good thing, but if it means not having a clear goal then what's it all for?

No doubt it is good to have the maximum number of members but without a vision with steps towards the "goal" then it would end up as a waste. I remember years ago about creating steps to reach a certain goal. I see this sort of thinking is almost absent from the Left.

Mike--I feel that a collectively owned economy has to be designed in detail on paper, with great care taken to omit the several ways in which the system can turn out to be bureaucratic rather than democratic. Waiting until the last minute to plan the structure probably means that it will become bureaucratic by default -- or worse -- perhaps oppressive.
Much in the same way the Soviet Union became oppessive against the very people they were to represent. I agree that the republic of labor has to be planned out which is one of the reason that SIU has had an appeal along with the TLV. So far, many whom I talk to are hostile toward this sensable approach toward an industrial government.

John T

Posted: 05 Mar 2007 11:06 pm Post subject:

If people are hostile to a direct suggestion, we may present a comparative presentation. If there are a dozen ideas out there of what socialism means, then we can say that there are a dozen, and contrast them. When they say they hate socialism, we ask them - wait a minute, of these various and very different proposals, what features exactly are you against? Then they will say they're against having a repressive state. We say: good, and so are we. Then they will say they're against having an inefficient bureaucracy with many layers of privileged appointees, we say: good, so are we. People will have to learn eventually that the mechanism is more important than the name given to it. I tell them: don't say "socialism doesn't work"; the first airplane in 1903 "didn't work" either -- it was able to stay in the air for only fourteen seconds. I tell them: you tell me what you think it needs to make it work, and I'll tell you what I think it needs to make it work. Now there's a fruitful discussion.

Posted: 06 Mar 2007 01:06 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 06 Mar 2007 01:44 am Post subject:

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 12:54 am Post subject:

True, the Left in the U.S. is very divided over every possible socialist concept. That is why I don't bother with rev-left anymore. Too many kids, too much authoritarian attitudes and followers of certain dead people without much thought as to what they did good or bad...a lot of bad. Do you think the SIU be created anytime soon or do we wait for the SLP to get their act together? Chances are the SLP might revamp leadership and membership. But only you and Dave know what those needed changes are.

John T.

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 03:13 am Post subject:

The SLP is just a name, even in the best of cirmcumstances with all of their shit together. dave

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 06:41 pm Post subject:

In my opinion, there's no reason at all to wait. If any two or more people who work in the same industry begin to have periodic meetings where the topic on the agenda is "when the workers take over the control of this operation, how do we think it should be run?", and they make public announcements that they will be holding these meetings, and invite their colleagues to join in, then the SIU has just been established. Better yet would be two or more people who work in the same workplace, but at a minimum it would have to be two or more people who work in the same field or industry. To start SIU departments in two industries you need at least four people. To start SIU departments in three industries you need at least six people.

But the agenda at every meeting has to be: how are we going to take control, and after we take control how will we run it? If that's not the main agenda of every meeting , then it isn't an SIU.

It's okay to have minor agendas. Someone can bring up the topic for a few minutes: this week the workers in some place or other, either this plant or some other plant, although they are acting through a pro-capitalist union, are on strike, so let's declare solidarity: if the strikers say that their shop is shut down, then we too insist that their shop is shut down. That's a minor agenda for the meeting. After the minor agenda is handled, the meeting must return to its major agenda: how are we going to acquire complete control of the industry, and then how shall we run it? It the topic always returns to that, it's an SIU; if it doesn't, it isn't one.

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 07:52 pm Post subject:

SLP articles over the years have said that the SIU should only be started when it can be big from the first day. If a substantial argument in support of that position has ever been given, I must have missed it. Probably all the reasoning offered to support that position could be written on the back of a postage stamp. There was something about not wanting fakers and reactionaries to join and thereby misdirect the SIU. No mention of the fact that the political party and the industrial union are exactly the same in this respect: if anyone is allowed to join without facing some scrutiny, then fakers can join and ruin it; if you have too much scrutiny before admitting members then the size of the membership suffers; no one is certain of the wisest balance between those two opposing tendencies. True of the party; true of the union. If the party can start small, the union can too. If the union shouldn't be started unless it can be started big, then the party shouldn't either. No good reason has been identified for choosing one extreme for one and the other extreme for the other.

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 08:39 pm Post subject:

Mike--There was something about not wanting fakers and reactionaries to join and thereby misdirect the SIU. No mention of the fact that the political party and the industrial union are exactly the same in this respect: if anyone is allowed to join without facing some scrutiny, then fakers can join and ruin it; if you have too much scrutiny before admitting members then the size of the membership suffers; no one is certain of the wisest balance between those two opposing tendencies.

Basically, the idea was to screen and watch each new member? In essence you get a Leninist style of cetralism with up-coming purges? You are going to get all types of people in a political party and/or union. I can't believe they are afraid they might get burnt. The SIU has to be founded and its going to have problems being a democratic institution. With the proper elected administrators the SIU could stay the course. The SIU was planned out on paper. It has to hold up under everyday reality or the entire concept is flawed. The problem was that the SLP was not as ambitious as the anarchist and they came out on top.

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 09:46 pm Post subject:

Well, there is a problem called "raiding." Suppose you have a genuine socialist organization, by which I mean the goal they would create would be a truly democratic society, and also let's suppose the organization has 1000 members. Now the Stalinists don't like that, so they get 1,200 Stalinists to join it, for the sole purpose of changing it. Now they're the majority, so they convert the organization to a Stalinist one. Based on this kind of real or imagined danger, there is a need for at least some screening of applicants, restricting membership to people who will sign their names to agreeing with a _small_ set of basic principles. Of course, the length of that list of requirements, and the specific things on it, can be chosen wisely or unwisely. To join the Socialist Party of Great Britain, one has to sign their name to opposing all religion, which is an example of what I'd call an unwisely chosen restriction. But I'd go along with limiting membership applications to those who agree on a few basics, having to do with democratic ideals.

Posted: 07 Mar 2007 11:51 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

SLP articles over the years have said that the SIU should only be started when it can be big from the first day.

dave writes:

I have to call you on that one Mike. I do not recall reading such.

dave

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 12:59 am Post subject:

Mike--Well, there is a problem called "raiding." Suppose you have a genuine socialist organization, by which I mean the goal they would create would be a truly democratic society, and also let's suppose the organization has 1000 members. Now the Stalinists don't like that, so they get 1,200 Stalinists to join it, for the sole purpose of changing it. Now they're the majority, so they convert the organization to a Stalinist one. Based on this kind of real or imagined danger, there is a need for at least some screening of applicants, restricting membership to people who will sign their names to agreeing with a _small_ set of basic principles.

Wait a minute...are we now talking of how the anarchist took the IWW? And as for screening applicants...does not the SLP do this as well as membership restriction and a set of principles..? I am wondering something but I won't say yet.

John T.

John T.

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 01:58 pm Post subject:

That's one example, anarchists in the IWW. Another is the practice of some CP and SWP members of joining anything they can join, every union, every civil liberties coalition, etc. in the hopes of eventually taking control of it. Another is the phobia that goes back to when the number of the followers of Bakunin began to grow in the International in the 1860s, then the followers of Marx destroyed the International rather than see it (allegedly) taken over.

Yes, the SLP screens applicants, but I don't know the current extent of it. It may have changed some, for all I know. I joined the SLP in 1973 and I quit in 1980 (I think). When I joined, the New York City section had an elected "membership committee" consisting of two guys (on that particular occasion) converse with me for a couple hours. It wasn't all business, it was also a pleasant visit with relaxation and hors d'oeuvres in a nice guy's living room, but mainly I was there so they could ask me questions about my beliefs and intentions. Heh-heh, I really wowed them when one of them asked me what I thought of a certain statement that he said came from a newspaper article written by De Leon, and I instantly corrected him, pointing out that the words came from a newspaper article written by Marx. I was a junior in college then (just to show my advanced age).

Anyway, the process in the SLP usually goes like this:

At the monthly meeting of the local (city or county) section of the party, all the members are sitting around a large table, usually in a rented or borrowed conference room at a hotel, church basement, library, firehouse, etc. The organizer of the local section is the member who has been elected to the job of reading and writing official correspondences, and is often but not always also the person who is elected to be the meeting chair person for the day. The membership committee has sent a letter to the organizer, similar to: "Based on our conversation, we would like to recommend that so-and-so be admitted [or rejected] as a member." The organizer reads the letter to everyone. Someone says "I move that so-and-so be admitted [or rejected] as a member", someone else says "I second the motion", then they may want to discuss it, then they vote on it. The organizer writes a letter to the applicant and tells him or her whether the application was approved or denied.

I attended some of the monthly meetings, although, as an out-of-town member living about 60 miles from NYC, I was exempted from being expected to be there. At one meeting I attended, the organizer read a letter from the membership committee where they reported about an applicant, "So-and-so said he wants to join the party mainly so that he can change it! [Tone of voice signaling danger!] We recommend that the application be denied." No one started a discussion about it, and within a few seconds the majority voted to deny the application.

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 02:19 pm Post subject:

"Only the trade union is capable of setting on foot a true political party of labor, and thus raise a bulwark against the power of capital." -- Karl Marx

That's the statement that he said was De Leon, and I corrected him :-)

De Leon reported that he had seen the statement in an article by Marx. De Leon quoted it one of his own articles in 1907, entitled "With Marx for Text" (here is a copy http://www.deleonism.org/cgi-bin/text.cgi?j=19070629 ) Problem is, I have never been able to find anyone else in the world who saw this quote. I would like to find it some day, not only to check that De Leon was truthful and accurate, but also because different German-English translators render phrases differently. I see nothing about it from a data base search at marxists.org for "bulwark" and so forth.

Some SLP publications modify the quote, using brackets to add the words "economic organization", like this: "Only the trade union [that is, the economic organization] is capable of...."

In the early 1970s I was a penpal of [now deceased] Harry Morrison, who was then the national secretary of the World Socialist Party of the U.S., one of the World Socialist Movement parties, a group which opposes the SIU concept. Harry used to ridicule the suggestion that Marx wrote the statement, since De Leon is apparently the only person who claims to have seen it. Harry told me in a letter that De Leon had claimed that the quotation was taken from the newspaper _Volksstaat_ edition of November 17, 1869, which is more detail about the source than I ever saw the SLP provide. All the SLP ever gives as the source is: "--- Marx."

It's really just a matter of historical curiosity. Whether the statement is right or wrong doesn't depend on who wrote it. To think that it really matters would be the logical fallacy known as "argument by authority", or "argumentum ad verecundiam."

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 02:30 pm Post subject:

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 04:10 pm Post subject:

Better a Stalinist than a Trot. To leave out the historical function of Stalin and dwell on the USSR not being truly socialist under him, not that it could have been under anyone, it being a "Little Icaria," plays into the hands of the Trots. The Trots couldn't wait to make deals withe the Nazis, and they are the backbone of the neo-tribalist/neo-cons that dominate the capitalist class at this time.

Again, the USSR could not have been anything other than a "Little Icaria," so to blame Stalin for what he had to do to maintain it is folly. He was necessary at the time.

Where is all the freedom the Trots promised when the Warsaw Pact/allies fell apart? The SoDems/Trots et cetera couldn't crow enough about "freedom." All I see is tribalism. Balkans, for example.

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 09:02 pm Post subject:

Questing wrote:

Better a Stalinist than a Trot.

dave writes:

I must admit that things like this don't keep me up at night:-)

dave

Posted: 08 Mar 2007 10:48 pm Post subject:

That is interesting to read that the CP, SWP, anarchist, et al, are determined to take over coalitions and unions so that they can dominate them to reflect their belief system. Now, I could be wrong, but I can see why Dave would write that the SIU would have to be formed on revolution day. However, it would be hard to say what group ideology would be dominate on that day. Providing if society does not go down the road of barbarism. Regarding being a Trot or Stalinist, don't know if I would call it tribalism. Could be called group dynamics. But whatever happens in Europe does not necessarially determine what happens on this side of the pond. All variations of Leninism try to protray themselves as the workers salvation. I wish they just let the whole thing die out but how can they when they think Lenin's brain was the most superior on the planet though it was of average weight and having no real difference from other brains of the same weight. Stamp reforms on capitalism and call it a communist state. The Golden Gate Bridge is for sale too.

John T

Posted: 09 Mar 2007 10:38 pm Post subject:

At any rate, as I wrote before, is the SLP just experiencing glitches with the membership? Those could be ammended if a few people shout about it long enough. They alone hold the SIU program which no other Leftie party wants to touch. I ain't kidding.

John T

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 10:46 am Post subject:

John wrote:

They alone hold the SIU program

dave writes:

John, what you don't seem to catch the reality is that you, Mike and I are probably doing more outreach right now on SIU that the whole SLP combined.

Where the hell are they on the internet?

Of all the organizations that you talked about joining you never talked about joining th SLP. I am not saying this to be facitious, but why don't you join and see how long you last.

dave

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 02:07 pm Post subject:

As a political party they alone hold the SIU program but only you and Mike are active about spreading SIU information on the web. The only socialist political party I was a member of was SP-USA. There was some who were interested but when they found out that SIU was not a reform to capitalism I believe they became offended. Others were downright hostile to the whole concept so I have no idea what socialism was to them. I know your not being facitious Dave. I wish I knew why the SLP is so silent. Perhaps one day it may just dawn on them.

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 04:26 pm Post subject:

day don't dawn on those who have died, only upon their ashes.

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 06:49 pm Post subject:

Isn't the SP(Socialist party) a group of neo-cons? I know they support Zionism, Linda Chavez came from that party, and they are generally affiliated to reactionary trade unions such as UAW.

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 06:51 pm Post subject:

Only you and Mike know the extent of the SLP which has dampen any thought I may of have of joining them. I do have some of their PDF files on union work and such and from reading the material I would think they would have made their presence known on the web, at least to build up the SLP, which is their primary objective, and make known their views and argue for the SIU. Like you said they are absent and silent.

John T

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 07:37 pm Post subject:

I would not discourage you one iota from joining. Who knows, maybe Mike and I are totally off of our nut. I thnk that you are entirely in agreement with their program but you MAY run up agnbst their self-limiting factor their DISCIPLINE machine. But you will never know one way or the other until you join.

dave

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 07:44 pm Post subject:

questing wrote:

Isn't the SP(Socialist party) a group of neo-cons? I know they support Zionism, Linda Chavez came from that party, and they are generally affiliated to reactionary trade unions such as UAW.

dave writes:

questing, this is my answer to such queries - it doesn't keeinp me up at night if they are, or not, or whether they do or not.

We discuss SIU and if anyone with the SP picks it up on it, all well and good. If they don't, we just keep plugging for it anyway. Just a stubborn bunch of so and sos I guess we are.

dave

Posted: 10 Mar 2007 11:55 pm Post subject:

questing wrote:

Posted: 11 Mar 2007 01:52 am Post subject:

I been reading James Connelly who wrote that men and women have to unite on the industrial field before they can come together on the political field. He was saying to attack on both the economic and political but unity has to be realised on the industrial field first. When that is realised then the political party of the union would then be able to attack through the ballot. At any rate, I was wondering, Dave, why you view the IWW as not up to being an industrial union? I know my question was would they be the industrial government of the future which Mike answered as best he could.

JT

Posted: 11 Mar 2007 03:12 am Post subject:

John wrote:

Dave--are you suggesting that the SLP took up the democratic centralism disciplinary tactics from the Leninist? Also: I think that you are entirely in agreement with their program... Er...I was pointing out that their literature states that they are to work to build the party and to promote SIU everywhere. Problem is...the silence which makes them look like a bunch of hypocrites...

dave writes:

"democratic centralism disciplinary tactics from the Leninist?" ???

Holy shit, what does this stuff mean? No wait, don't tell me, I really don't want to know.

What I mean is that the folks at the SLP, top to bottom have a real problem with discipline - or that is how I perceive it. They don't change it, so I guess they must be some of them who are perfectly happy with having what I perceive to be a big problem. Obviously some join and stay, so who knows. Maybe if your joined you would see things from a different perspective on the inside and think that they are doing the right thing.

"the silence which makes them look like a bunch of hypocrites..."

Again we don't know. We sure don't see them out on the internet where its free and easy to get your point out there. But then again, 45 years ago there were only a tiny minority in the party who ever did any public literature work. This is the way it is in all organizations, apparently. A few people doing the work, the rest, what we used to call knife and fork socialists - the ones who would show up at the party chow downs. That don't make them hypocrites. Maybe it makes us the hypocrites for being so god damned critical of people, who the fuck knows?

dave

Posted: 11 Mar 2007 03:30 am Post subject:

John wrote:

I been reading James Connelly who wrote that men and women have to unite on the industrial field before they can come together on the political field. He was saying to attack on both the economic and political but unity has to be realised on the industrial field first. When that is realised then the political party of the union would then be able to attack through the ballot. At any rate, I was wondering, Dave, why you view the IWW as not up to being an industrial union? I know my question was would they be the industrial government of the future which Mike answered as best he could.

dave writes:

I don't care which is first or second, but the political without the industrial just isn't revolutionary IMHO. The IWW is not an industrial union becuase, as we discussed, it really isn't talking revolution, is it? If it isn't then how can it unify? The IWW has been so busy not being a political partisian that it has shied away from THE political question of our lifetime. How can the many actually organize industrially to take over of the means of production when that is not openly or otherwise even advocated? To me that is not union but intentional dis-union.

dave

Posted: 11 Mar 2007 03:31 am Post subject:

Okay Dave....I guess I will never know. Perhaps Iv'e been listening to "Comfortly Numb" to often or to the folded faces on the floor which everyday the paperboy brings more. Whatever the "big disipline" problem is it is not Leninist. Like I wrote before, you and Mike have me rather spooked over the SLP. However, the education provided here by the both of you is exceptional. Thank you. On the other hand, the IWW has more of an anarchist flavor which I see on their art work at the website. Now, I did read that politics is up to the membership. Since the IWW has no hiarchy and is made up of volunteers...the political question just might become an issue once again. I look at this way...the SLP has no SIU and the IWW has no political party so both are not revolutionary. In the mean time I will learn and decide what direction to go.

John T

Posted: 11 Mar 2007 01:08 pm Post subject:

I agree that niether the SLP or IWW are revolutionary, but they are not revolutionary for different reasons.

The IWW is not revolutionary becuase it does not advocate revolution except as a come on. If the union cannot make partisians of its members against capitalism in toto, and indeed cringes from that and gives every appearance that they are quite happy to be identifed with the "left wing" of a capitlalist political party, if even informally - to me it is dis-unionist.

The SLP cannot be revolutionary becuase it does not act under the auspices of a revolutionary union. In my mind it makes itself ineffective for other reasons - mainly for throwing everyone out - but even it it had a million members chattering away on the interent and out on the street corners banging away on the theme of the great class struggle, it would not make it one iotas more revolutionary than it is now.

So SLP is not revolutionary becuase it by defintion (if only my own) cannot be and the IWW is not revolutionary becuase it wants to be something else.

Posted: 11 Mar 2007 06:07 pm Post subject:

You make some very good points. Smile

Will be back when I can think of something better.

John T.

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 12:15 am Post subject:

A few things bother me about the creation of SIU. What would keep it from coming under Leninist control? They are so determined that they have the right of rule over the working class since they consider themselves (so-called) "professionals".

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 06:23 am Post subject:

How does any organization come under someone's control? It happens when the members allow it, when the members didn't know that they shouldn't allow it. It depends on the degree of education. It's the same with the whole society. For a society to be a democracy, that requires that the people have the ability to vote themselves into a dictatorship, and it requires also that they choose not to do that. It's only a democracy if a would-be dictator is always allowed to run in an election and always fairly loses that election. I think it's related to the paradox of individual freedom. To live your life in freedom, that requires that you always have the ability to jump off a cliff if you wanted to, but you don't want to. For the SIU to be under the control of its membership, they could ruin it by turning it over to "leaders" or "bosses", but they don't, and that's how we would know that they actually control it.

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 02:01 pm Post subject:

Thanks Mike. I figured that elections, democracy and individual freedoms would be the hallmark of socialism. More so than what we have now. I kinda frightens me when I read those who want to bring people into their framework of their vision of what society would be.

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 03:58 pm Post subject:

the only non-threatening situation is being dead.

who said constant vigilance is the only safeguard of freedom? I want to say Franklin.

Everything is one of Franklin, Shakespear, Lincoln, Twain, the Bible or Marx (Karl or Groucho)

dave

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 04:27 pm Post subject:

Hey, you forgot Chico and Harpo! Cool

Can't happen here
Can't happen here
All that you Fear
I'm Tellin ya
Can't happen here
Can it?

Richie Blackmore's Rainbow about the Soviet Union.

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 06:36 pm Post subject:

Yes, every once in a while Chico "Everybody knows there isn't a Sanity Clause!" but never Harpo.

Posted: 23 Mar 2007 10:02 pm Post subject:

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilence." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Don't point that beard at me. It might go off." -- Groucho Marx

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 07:13 am Post subject:

Sooner or later I would come back to this topic. I've read in a few places that De Leon's theories were dis proven but, of course, no sources given. On the other hand I want to change thought here. Here is something on the IWW page Mike added to the web site and here is something I wanted to talk about:

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 07:38 am Post subject:

As each year goes by that "... ability ... need" slogan makes less sense to me. Perhaps the people who are attracted to that ideal don't have an idea how much detail must go into running something complicated like a pharmaceutical or electronics industry. Maybe a village bakery could be run like a hippie commune, but not major industry. The industrial union concept, going all the way from the initial lever of social change to a smoothly operating amdinistrative system, may yet have a few bugs in it, but it's the general kind of approach needed, in that it can handle a large mass of production details. The "... ability ... need" concept isn't a formula that can actually be put into practice. I also think it's offered by some due to a psychological reaction to having lived under repressive capitalism, to the point that the rebel now demands an ideal in which everything is spontaneously voluntary, without pausing to notice that this swing to the opposite extreme can't actually support the running of mills and factories. The industrial union concept still has gaps, but the webbing is there, and it can get filled in by more people making further considerations of it.

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 09:33 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 04:07 pm Post subject:

I also see myself getting away from the word "union." It causes people reflexively to make a comparison with the AFL, Teamsters, etc., and the only one similarity that it has with them is that workers organize it at their workplaces.

Now I tend to use the word "association" more. I'm converging on this kind of definition: The road to socialism is when: (1) the steel mill workers form an association of steel mill workers, the farm workers form an association of farm workers, etc.; (2) all such associations are confederated, so that the word "association" in the singular is accurate; (3) The purpose and goal of the association is to take over the role of management; (4) A political change mandates that the workplace associations have the right to take over the role of management.

I don't see much opportunity there for the SIU to be of much help in wage and working condition disputes while capitalism still exists. It won't be of much use there because the two kinds of unions, the wage-fighting kind and the future-management kind, have nearly opposite strategies: the first has to admit as many members as possible regardless of what they believe in, and the latter has to admit members if they believe in something specific, regardless of the effect that this may have on membership size. Pretty much opposite there.

Workers can remain in the AFL, Teamsters, etc. all the while the SIU is organizing, they probably should, and they will probably need to, but being in both organizations is probably legal only if the SIU doesn't use the word "union". Why select a word that has legal overtones if the use of the unnecessary word limits one's opportunities?

(Personally, I wouldn't care if someone is a member of a dozen unions, and a dozen political parties as well. If they're willing to pay the dues, it's no one's business but their own. In this regard, De Leon and Gompers had a pointless dispute.)

Technically it's an SIU, and those of us who know what it means can call it an SIU. Its name should be such that workers who are asked on job applications "are you a member of a union?" can check the No box. In the way the word was intended by that question, it's not a union -- it's the future management and economic system.

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 05:19 pm Post subject:

now I wouldn't give up on that word especially if you would ask the majority of non-union workers if they wished that here was a union where they worked. I am just guessing but I think the answer would be a resounding yes.

i use the word union as labor "union" along with the "union" applied to the country. I am especially starting to use that word as applied to country in my crazy 4th branch socialism idea.

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 05:30 pm Post subject:

I was wondering if we should get away from the word "union". If you noticed in my earlier post I wrote "worker's councils?". Association is good since union is more of a bad word today and denote struggle. What I would like to see is more focus on what is done when common ownership comes along. How that association would function in production, workers participation in what is produced, local distribution of products to social stores rather than drive long distance to Wal-Mart (one way to save on fuel).

Is it at all possible that the creation of laws and by-laws be created presently for the Socialist Industrial Association? For the future you know. Will you be changing the name on the website to "association"?

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 05:49 pm Post subject:

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 06:04 pm Post subject:

Posted: 10 Jun 2007 11:54 pm Post subject:

This could be our theme song:

Cherish is the word I use to describe
All the feeling that I have hiding here for you inside
You don't know how many times I've wished that I had told you
You don't know how many times I've wished that I could hold you
You don't know how many times I've wished that I could
Mold you into someone who could
Cherish me as much as I cherish you

Or this:

Who's peekin' out from under a stairway
Calling a name that's lighter than air
Who's bending down to give me a rainbow
Everyone knows it's Windy

Or this. which I nominate: I love this "Now that my empty cups tastes as sweet as the puch - as sweet as the punch."

Every time I think that I'm the only one who's lonely
Someone calls on me
And every now and then I spend my time in rhyme and verse
And curse those faults in me

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to give me kicks , and be my steady chick
And give me pick of memories
Or maybe rather gather tales of all the fails and tribulations
No one ever sees

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

When vague desire is the fire in the eyes of chicks
Whose sickness is the games they play
And when the masquerade is played and neighbor folks make jokes
As who is most to blame today

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to set them free, and let them see reality
From where she got her name
And will they struggle much when told that such a tender touch as hers
Will make them not the same

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

And when the morning of the warning's passed, the gassed
And flaccid kids are flung across the stars
The psychodramas and the traumas gone
The songs are left unsung and hung upon the scars

And then along comes Mary
And does she want to see the stains, the dead remains of all the pains
She left the night before
Or will their waking eyes reflect the lies, and make them
Realize their urgent cry for sight no more

When we met I was sure out to lunch
Now my empty cup tastes as sweet as the punch

*******************

For 5 points and the game, what the hell am I referring to???

Personally I like union better than association becuase union seems more like there would be sex involved with it.

Posted: 11 Jun 2007 05:19 am Post subject:

The Association, of course. I have their Greatest Hits CD. It's too easy to earn me five points. I only deserve three points.

Posted: 11 Jun 2007 05:25 am Post subject:

Maybe a discussion of the name could be the theme of a speech. A speechmaker needs a hook. Tell people you're going to consider something having to do with semantics, and then present this topic: Should an association be called a union if it organizes at workplaces but it's purpose is to confiscate the workplaces from the owners? Then the audience is wondering: why would you want to do that? -- then you tell them. If nothing else seems to grab people's attention, we have to try some new approaches.

Posted: 11 Jun 2007 10:03 am Post subject:

Or: I just stopped in to see waht condition my condition was in. Yeah Yeah, Oh Yeah, What condition my condtion was in.

The Emancipation Proclamation:
&&&&&&&&&&&
And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I don't think I would use confiscate - not a strong reason, the means of production no longer exits as private property - restoring it to the workers. When the capitalists took ift from the workers, was that called consfication? Not a biggie I will admit however.

Posted: 11 Jun 2007 10:51 pm Post subject:

dictionary.com

confiscate

1. to seize as forfeited to the public domain; appropriate, by way of penalty, for public use.
2. to seize by or as if by authority; appropriate summarily: The border guards confiscated our movie cameras.

What crappy writing style for a dictionary. It's no wonder that people learning English for the first time have so much difficulty.

After several minutes I was finally able to understand "by or as if by", but I never did understand "to seize as forfeited to".

***

The words "take", "seize", "confiscate", etc. are imprecise because they invoke the image of relocating an object. No one is going to pick up the factories and take them anywhere.

Is there a word in English for acquiring control of a building by the process of lifting up the people who formerly controlled it, carrying them to a doorway, and throwing through the air in a parabolic trajectory, so that their cheeks collide with cement if no mud puddle is available? If so, that word would be one of the most accurate terms for explaining a transition to socialism.

But those are the people who today are in the most direct kind of control, the corporate managers, who would have to be thrown through the air and have their faces collide with pavement. The ultimate but also indirect control is exerted today by the absentee owners, the stockholders. Most of the absentee capitalists would interface with a socialist revolution in the sense that envelopes which are now mailed to them, the quarterly envelope containing the dividend check and the annual envelope containing the proxy card, would no longer be received at their mailboxes. Sooner than that happens, the absentee owners would find out about the socialist revolution by seeing it reported in the news, and when they go to the store and are informed that the store no longer accepts their paper money. But there would be no event that is accurately describable as taking, seizing, or confiscating.

Posted: 12 Jun 2007 08:36 am Post subject:

Managers by in large have a knack for being able to read between the lines. Many probably have very good ideas as to how things in their shops could run a heck of a lot more efficiantly (except that pointy haired boss in the Dilbert cartoons I guess. And in all cases I have an aversion even to the idea as a joke of someone being physically endangered. But this is where I like the amendment idea (you recall I was intially opposed to such) the Constitution itself is recognized as being able to free property without compensation. If it can free humans from property assertions against their bodies, it can free humans from property assertions against the tools they have designed and produced in order that they may live. Something like: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another..."

Posted: 12 Jun 2007 05:11 pm Post subject:

The prospect for constitutional amendment is all about how uniformly distributed an opinion is, or whether there's a lot of pro- on some places and anti- in other places. First assume perfect homogeneity: if socialists were a 51% majority in every district, then they would occupy 100% of the seats in Congress and the state legislatures. But with a lot of heterogeneity by location, a considerable majority might be unable to amend the Constitution.

If it's doable, it would solve a lot of other issues. With "property" now listed in the Constitution in the same breath as "life", the present wording probably generates some of the opposition to socialism.

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 03:04 am Post subject:

I found this tid bit interesting from the Manifesto of the Industrial Unionist Convention of 1905.

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 06:38 am Post subject:

Just within the past two months a new opinion overtook me. Now I tend to think that no union can be the one that seeks better wages and working conditions, and also be the one that seeks a new economic system. The best situation is to have two unions, one of each of the two kinds, in the same place and at the same time, and encourage individuals to be members of both at the same time. De Leon (Socialist Trade & Labor Alliance) and Gompers (American Federation of Labor) were arguing unnecessarily. The only reason for their argument was that each wanted an exclusivity agreement from the individual member. Well, I think that's the reason why the IWW lost its way -- because it tried to do both.

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 07:56 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 08:02 pm Post subject:

Funny how joking around can lead you to new thoughts.

I had joked that I liked the word union better that association becuase it sounded more like sex - well I was talking to Nat Presssman's son about my idea concerning the 4th branch. he told me that he thought it was a good idea, and in talking to him, explaimning it a bit more I sad that a person didn't even have to consider themselves a socialsit to be able to support it, and that frankly, the workers will not support a dismantleing of the federal/ state state in favor of SIU - so no reason to even talk about it. Then he suggested that the 4th branch instead of union be called something like the labor congress. Then I looked up the defintion of congress. I thought that it specicially meant a reprentative body as in the US Congree, but no it means to come together like what? like sexual intercourse!! I din't know that congress was another name for that see:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/congress

1.

A formal assembly of representatives, as of various nations, to discuss problems.

4.
a. The act of coming together or meeting.
b. A single meeting, as of a political party or other group.

5. Sexual intercourse.

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 08:26 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 10:23 pm Post subject:

And the capital city should be Intercourse, Pennsylvania {ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom}

Posted: 19 Jun 2007 10:33 pm Post subject:

Posted: 20 Jun 2007 03:30 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 20 Jun 2007 10:43 am Post subject:

The congress of workers already exists - it is through their congress (coming together) that commodities are produced.

My brilliant proposal that we should start working for a constitutional amendment recognizing the congress of workers and its right to manage and determine how the wealth it produces is distributed (including ownership of the means of production and all industrial property that has been produced) - that working for that amendment will be the building of the political mandate at the same time of education of the congress members concerning their role.

People do not have call themselves socialists in order to support this, and many people who call themselves socialists although they would agree with the outcome of the workers owning and controlling the means of production once it occurred would disagree with the use of the state to bring about the revolution. (I am tired of the name game of what's socialist and what's not. The workers take hold and operate the means of production, I don't care if it's called the full employment and wealth distribution act of 2008.)*

I think we would be fools not to try the amendment/education process it if the system is there and invites itself for use to this purpose.

*In this the Frank Girard group had it right except that it did seem (to me at first glance) that they went out of the way to avoid using the term socialist. But what does it matter.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 03:41 am Post subject:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 03:47 am Post subject:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 04:05 am Post subject:

Dave, I don't think you mean Frank Girard's group. The two groups I know that go out of their way to avoid the term "socialist" are: (1) The Industrial Union Party (IUP), most recently renamed People for a New System (PFANS). This is the group that the SLP created by expelling Section Bronx. Mostly operating in New York and New Jersey. (2) The New Union Party (NUP) and New Unionist, most recently renamed Campaign for a Working Democracy. Mostly operating in Minneapolis. Frank Girard wasn't associated with either of those groups. Frank always stuck with the terms socialism and Marxism. Frank's unique characteristic, as expressed in the Discussion Bulletin, that he published was that he believed the K. Liebkneckt / R. Luxemburg movement, the De Leonists, World Socialists, syndicalists and anarchists were all on the same side.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 05:41 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:10 am Post subject:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:34 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Frank always stuck with the terms socialism and Marxism. Frank's unique characteristic, as expressed in the Discussion Bulletin, that he published was that he believed the K. Liebkneckt / R. Luxemburg movement, the De Leonists, World Socialists, syndicalists and anarchists were all on the same side.

dave writes:

Thank you for straightening me out on this. I have a hole in my history of about 20 years.

dave

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:49 am Post subject:

Can you two go back and start over on this. Someone strated to use quoted material and didn't attribute and then the other did and it is not at all clear who wrote what or what it is that you are responding to.

Mike you seem to be the culprit. You had a post:

&&&&&&&&&&&

Quote:
The second is an organization that is the self management leg. Would that leg teach workers management skills of Industrial Socialism, TLVs, how each department would function

That's what I think. Of course, the teaching can be done in many places at the same time -- at workplaces, in books and other media, in artistic media. Formation of the departments that will actually run workplaces has to be done at workplaces

Posted: 06/21/07 03:41:36 (I have my display set at GMT so yours might display something different as to time.)

&&&&&&&&&&&&

Can you identify who you were quoting and then can we continue the discussion from that point forward? Thank you.

dave

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:51 am Post subject:

I don't know that all-industry congress needs a delegate from every place and/or department. It has to exist for the industries to interface with each other. Perhaps more management activity is needed within any one industry compared to the boundary layers among several of them. Suppose that representation in the all-industry congress were proportional to project magnitude, say, one shipbuilding representative, two mining representatives, five manufacturing representatives. It's not clear to anyone what tasks this congress would be required to do anyway. That the inter-interface exists is enough of a reason to "put some representative democracy there", but I don't know how busy they would be.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:54 am Post subject:

Dave: John said: "The second is an organization that is the self management leg. Would that leg teach workers management skills of Industrial Socialism, TLVs, how each department would function...." I replied: "That's what I think. Of course, the teaching can be done in many places at the same time...."

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 09:03 am Post subject:

I just edited my most recent posts so that the quote function displays the user ID of the quoted person.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 09:07 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 09:16 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 09:22 am Post subject:

The SLP aways said that they applaud the rebellious spirit of the workers engaged in a strike, even though those workers are not socialists. And then in the next breath the SLP said that the nonsocialist trade union isn't to be defended as "better than nothing", that it's even worse than having nothing at all. I can't reconcile those two positions.

IMO, the nonsocialist trade union will have to continue right up until capitalism's last day. If it doesn't, the price of labor would collapse to the point that workers won't be able to feed their families. A socialist union couldn't help if that area because, since socialism hasn't been created yet, it's a tautology to say that the socialist union is too small to have any influence. What was the SLP thinking, that this is another case of heterogenous distribution, so that the SIU, while still too small to change society, could have sufficient strength in one industry to win a raise? This is a shaky assumption. The WSM called the SLP's bluff on this. One of the WSM criticisms of the SIU program -- and I think they are right about this *one* criticism -- was about the SLP's error is saying that the SIU will also give workers power to win "day-to-day struggles", as the SLP puts it. The position the SLP has taken for over a century is untenable. A union that can win even the smallest victory on the wage front has to unite all workers regardless of their political beliefs.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 09:35 am Post subject:

John, see this is where I feel wiggly about whether it's on target or whether it's misleading to say "union."

The SIU definitely has to be a union in the sense that it applies to one specific industry at a time, one here and one there. When it says something like "let's have eleven new departments to comprise this plant's component acqusition branch, and let's have the warehouse be called department number five, and let's elect Matilda to be the supervisor of the warehouse", that's obviously an on-the-job activity. Yes, there's a place in this program for people to join on a website, etc., but the organizational activity on the job is primary.

Unfortunately, the word "union" makes 99.999 percent of the people automatically think of bargaining over wages and conditions, which I see as the proper role of the "other" union.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 10:35 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 06:58 pm Post subject:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 07:02 pm Post subject:

What we call the union doesn't matter when we talk among ourselves. It probably matters when we write new literature to reach people who are hearing about it for the first time.

I just can't bring myself to believe that the socialist movement hasn't gotten anywhere in all this time because we're waiting for some "crisis" to make capitalism "collapse", and the working class will be activated by some "historical forces." It sound like a bunch of gibberish to me. It's much more likely that the socialist movement hasn't gotten anywhere because it's goals, strategies and public communications have not been made to be effective. How typically human of us to screw something up and then blame it on "the causal forces of history."

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:09 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 08:29 pm Post subject:

Right, the union that negotiates for wages. If everyone in the plant were in the same union, they could tell the boss hey boss if we go on strike every single person in this building will vacate it, and your business will be closed. But with craft unionism, there can be several unions in one plant, and one union goes on strike while all the others keep working. In many cases the business keeps running during a strike. So people like De Leon and Saniel and Kuhn in the SLP and people like Trautmann and Haywood and Hagerty in the IWW were trying to convince A.F. of L. president Gompers that his craft union structure made workers weaker.

The SIU also needs an I.U. structure, but for a different reason.

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 10:05 pm Post subject:

We can investigate this idea further to check whether we agree, but the traditional SLP reason for why the revolutionary union needs an I.U. structure is because its form has to correspond to its goal. One SLP publication quoted a motto used in design engineering and architecture, "form follows function."

Posted: 21 Jun 2007 10:29 pm Post subject:

Quote from the SLP leaflet "Socialist Industial Unionism: The Workers' Power", dstributed in the 1960s:

"'Form follows function' expresses the philosophy of a school
of industrial design. It is a brilliant generalization, and
it expresses perfectly the logic of Socialist government
based on industry. The function of government under
Socialism is that of administering social production for the
benefit of all. But to administer social production
requires, first of all, that government be based on the
industries. Its form must be industrial. It must conform
to the structure of the industrial apparatus that has
developed under capitalism."

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 09:52 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 10:48 am Post subject:

probably fewer instances of more that one union in a factory anymore but airlines? large institutions? And look not at the facory level but more at the industry level. But again their goal is simply SUPREME ANALOGY ALERT looser fitting chains.

dave

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 11:06 am Post subject:

What I wrote:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 11:29 am Post subject:

Im not wild about the use of association, seems too associated with business groups - but sure it would increase worker awareness. (Analogy alert)Tough sledding for any workers who associated with such group but perhaps in time. I'm like a (analogy alert) broken record on this amendment thing - there is nothing more "American" than proposing an amendment to the constitution. Working folk can work for such which will raise "consciousness" and at the same time not likely expose themselves to the wrath of the employer by forming a work site worker association. "Oh he/she's talking to the other workers about registering to vote to support a constitutional amendment? Sure like that's going to ever happen!! Nice nice little worker." Hell I can see even the workplace bosses supporting the amendment. But of course I have been known to get caught up in a dream or two.

dave

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 12:52 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 12:55 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 03:30 pm Post subject:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 03:45 pm Post subject:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 03:57 pm Post subject:

Posted: 22 Jun 2007 07:13 pm Post subject:

And do what, make wrist watches?

remeber the ones with hands that had some kind of radioactive material on them to make them glow in the dark??

Can that be true?

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 01:31 am Post subject:

Mike, I am talking about workers learning how to operate there own places of employment under socialist management. Not capitalist management. Workers meet to discuss not only how to manage their workplace but to interface with other "Industrial Councils" as they form I.U. structures. To get ready for the future of course. I may have been misunderstood when I wrote of unions in general. There is no SIU therefore, workers have to negotiate for wages and benefits in their own respective unions. Then you have shops and stores that have no unions. The impression I was getting is that unions and non union shop and stores exist. What training is offered in the Socialist Industrial Congress/Councils/Clubs just trains workers for self management. If workers decide that they want an SIU to form before the reconstruction then the foundation would be created from their own efforts.

Posted: 23 Jun 2007 04:27 am Post subject:

John: I agree, workers will have to prepare by communicating across companies -- workers in Ford, GM and Chrysler will be in the same SIU -- and across industrial sectors -- milling, manufacturing, chemicals, etc. To get ready for Democracy Day, this new communicaiton has to be begun while capitalism still dominates. I don't know what channels or opportunities they will use for that, but they will need to select some. Telephones and data links should make it a snap compared to a hundred years ago.

Dave: That is still true, an exposure of a couple of millirems per year, which is less than the exposure caused by many other sources. Just going outside occasionally causes more radiation exposure than a radium watch dial. The fruits and vegetables we eat contain a lot more. The radium dose is so low because the human eye is so perceptive that it can see a single photon. If you want you can google on the phrase: radium wristwatch.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 11:31 am Post subject:

I am bringing the discussion about the SIU structure from the amendment thread to here if no one minds. This is really really basic issue that needs a focused discussion ISTM.

Yes we have always said "organized along industrial lines". It sounds good but what does it actually mean?

Of course DeLeon (and those in DeLeoon's time, Debs included) looked at the term industrial union as in contradistinction to trade unions - and I guess if the union movement progressed and actually organized a good part of the workers into industrial unions there wouldn't be question 100 years later as to just what (analogy alert) piece of the puzzle goes where. They would have done it for us.

Well it wasn't done and we have to give more than lip service to the (oh hell, I can't think of anything but analogies for possibilities - frame work, demarcations - organizational chart - help me someone)

All we have is a few vague references to the govt. being along industrial lines from DeLeon the most memorable one from BQTU and administration of things from Fred . For some reason I thought that the idea had been imported from Morgan -

Now I wonder just what the heck I have been doing for almost 40 years. Don't we need some (gulp) expertise on the current industrial makeup instead of using Walter's SIU chart? (which was only drawn up by walter so that he could clarify for himself the basic idea. wonderful man)

Someone give us some insight- where the hell do we start to look at this??

Mike you had written as I recall about the industries not so much organized by the tools of production but by what they produce - but even that breaks down. Is building a ship part of the transportation industry of the construction industry how about building a passenger jet? manufacture industry? Laying down a pavement to a road - construction or transportation? Applying similar materials to a roof - construction?

It can work in anyway it is configured if everyone knows the plan. It's tough to just say that we're going to have to wing it until things shake out though.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 03:26 pm Post subject:

Dave wrote:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 05:04 pm Post subject:

Thank you John - divisions - analogy alert how do we hit the ground running with people having a vague idea where of where they fit? and is it flexible enough to be quickly altered without people getting hung up on their turf? Wy no they shouldn't becuase production will be for human nedd and blah blah - what the hell is that against someone saying, I've been making this button like this for 20 years and no bunch of SIU assholes is going to tell me any different!!!

Divisions brought back something to me mons and moons ago I briefly worked in a sheet metal shop where they did almost exclusively govt contracts for post office holding boxes and the like.

Our union? The carpenters union - the hollow metal door division of the carpenters union.

I guess they named it like that so as to not piss off the sheetmetal workers union. Here we're in a unionshop with half the wages of the sheetmetal workers all becuase of the agreed upon fiction by everyone (except the shop workers aparently) that we're making hollow metal doors.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 06:09 pm Post subject:

From what you wrote the "division" was to keep the sheet metal union from becoming rankled and kept you from a higher wage. SIU divisions (could call them "units") would be for clarification to avoid confusion of what exist in industries and who does what. I don't think it is about turf since it is all the same SIU. No doubt there would be an inter-relationship of orders taken from industries. Construction workers would need steel beams and would have to order them from a steel division (unit) and fabricators of giant cargo ships would have to order them as well. Is it not the industrial congress that decides what is built? To me SIU is a bit complicated. If we don't think things out to what SIU is then who will? I know now that it is not about negotiating for wages and benefits from capitalist. It is a complex economic organism under worker control. Capitalism is much more complicated under the control of a few. But we know they don't do much.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 06:41 pm Post subject:

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 06:50 pm Post subject:

Argument by analogy - get your one winged duck ready for flight -

Yes many (infinite number) of ways to do it - the same as (get this) designing the landing gear for a jumbo jet. But wouldn't you pretty much want to have it figured out before you try to land the plane??

One winged ducks stand up and all would clap if they only could.

dave

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 09:18 pm Post subject:

People who know about that particular industry have to figure it out. I can give opinions at length about semiconductors electronics. Some other workers out there can intelligently discuss shipbuilding. Not all workers have to understand all industries.

Of course, the only thing the capitalist has to know in order to get entitled to a vote is the phone number of a stock broker, and if that degree of systematic ignorance can achieve even a half-assed system of electing a management team today, there's no doubt that the workers who specilaize in a particular field can do a lot better.

Posted: 12 Jul 2007 09:20 pm Post subject:

Posted: 13 Jul 2007 04:36 am Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 13 Jul 2007 05:54 am Post subject:

Yes, I believe management today is conducted very poorly.

Admittedly, I worked for one company (IBM) for seventeen years, which distorts my perceptions. But within that one company I learned a lot about how management (there) was done, first because I wrote the software for the financial planning division, and later because I was a product designer who had to interact with other areas such as manufacturing, testing, vendors and customers. Utterly stupid decisions by management were frequent. I'll omit the horror stories unless you request to hear some of them. (Although I have less first hand experience with other companies, I trust the hearsay testimony from correspondents.)

Beyond the subject of utter incompentence, there is also the systematic inefficiency caused by profits. For example, a thin polymer layer could make the frame and body of a car resistant to rust and corrosion for a hundred years. A collapse in the rate of sales would be very bad for business, that is to say, very good for human society.

In another case, I can't remember the name of the company or the invention, but in the early 1990s scientists wrote letters of protest to the scientific journal _Nature_ about the medical instrumentation company that owned a patent on a medical diagnostic kit, but decided not to produce it, and wouldn't allow anyone else produce it either. This is systematic inefficieny.

But my favorite kind of inefficiency is the kind that ineptness and incompetence cause.

Posted: 13 Jul 2007 08:00 am Post subject:

Yes yes but how do we say it? Just having the idea that it could be done if everyone just did it isn't very far along at all.

Posted: 14 Jul 2007 01:54 am Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 12:20 pm Post subject:

assuming that would work - SOMEONE must have already done this Linnaus type of work for the industries it probably exists in chart form on the wall in some obscure Department of Commerce office. maybe I can work undercover as a floor mopper in DC to discover it. But, someone must have done this - perhaps as an economics project or whatever. Where do we find it? Remember the rules say no takling economics courses!!!!

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 03:33 pm Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 08:13 pm Post subject:

So we come back to the IWW. I am putting the chart in easy to read form since I got a big monitor. I was still hard though because the print gets smaller and smaller. Better check to see if there is a copyright on the chart.

Department 100 - Agriculture and Fisheries: Agricultural Workers Industrial Union 110, Lumber workers Industrial Union 120, Fishery Workers Industrial Union 130, Floriculteral Industrial Union 140.

Department 200 - Mining and Minerals: Metal and Mine Workers I.U 210,Coal Miner Workers I.U. 220, Oil Workers I.U. 230.

Department 300 - General Construction: General Construction Workers I.U. 310, Shipbuilders Workers I.U. 320, Building Construction Workers I.U. 330.

Department 400 - Manufacture and General Production: Textile and Clothing Workers I.U 410, Furniture Workers I.U. 420, Chemical Workers I.U. 430, Metal and ? Workers I.U. 440, Printing(?) and plumbing Workers I.U. 450, Food Stuff Workers I.U. 460, Leather Workers I.U 470, Glass and Pottery Workers I.U. 480, Pulp and Paper Mill Workers I.U. 490.

Department 500 - Transportation and Communication: Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union 510, All workers engaged in marine transportation. All workers on docks and in terminals.

Railroad Workers Industrial Union 520. All workers engaged in long distance railway freight and passenger transportation and telecommunication. All workers in locomotive, car, and repair shops. All workers in and around passenger and freight terminals.

Motor Transport Workers Industrial Union 530. All workers engaged in hauling freight and passengers by truck, bus, and cab. All workers in and around motor freight sheds, and bus passenger stations.

Municipal Transportation Workers Industrial Union 540. All workers engaged in municipal, short distance transportation and telecommunication services.

Air Transport Workers Industrial Union 550. All workers employed in air service and maintenance.

Communications and Computer Workers Industrial Union 560. All workers engaged in telephone, telegraph, radio, television, satellite communication, and computer operation, including programming, and networking.

Department 600 - Public Service: Health Service Workers Industrial Union 610. All workers employed in hospitals and health restoration services.
Educational Workers Industrial Union 620. All workers in educational institutions.
Recreational Workers Industrial Union 630. All workers in playgrounds and places of amusement and recreation. All professional entertainers.
Restaurant, Hotel, and Building Service Workers I.U. 640.
General, Legal, Public Interest, and Financial Workers I.U. 650
General Distribution Workers Industrial Union 660
Municipal and Utility Service Workers Industrial Union 670
Household Service Workers Industrial Union 680
All workers engaged in performing services in the home.
Sex Trade Workers Industrial Union 690

A lot to list on the last two departments and very hard to read as well.
Note: One down one to go. Further note--completed!
I would say the larger departments would have more representative for the All-industrial Congress. I have ask. Are we creating a new Industrial Union program or a political program or are both inclusive in this planning scheme? I do like how the IWW has put the departments together but I have no idea if they were to continue after the capitalist class is gone. It appears to me the IWW sole purpose is to exist under the present system. However, the SIU form of organization is very vital for many years after capitalism.

John T.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 10:12 pm Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 10:15 pm Post subject:

No need to worry about copyright in that kind of thing. The copyright law is pretty clear that copyright doesn't apply to lists of parts or ingredients, tables of contents, etc.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 10:19 pm Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 10:23 pm Post subject:

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 10:31 pm Post subject:

Please find some excuse to put me in with the exotic dancers in I.U. 690. Ha-ha. Sorry.

Posted: 15 Jul 2007 11:01 pm Post subject:

The excuse would be high heels and pantyhose. Shocked

Side note: I would think the sex trade would end under socialism and women given their dignity.

Mike wrote:

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 04:36 am Post subject:

Kinda ironic that the sex trade industrial workers is I.U. 690. Get it? 690 Laughing

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 06:16 am Post subject:

The number 69 kind of looks like the positions of the two fishes in the constellation of Pisces.

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 04:00 pm Post subject:

All joking aside...I did complete all the departments and I.U.s in the previous post. I hope it helps Dave.

Mike wrote:

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 08:04 pm Post subject:

That's why I believe that the union that wants to take over the whole works and the union that fights for better job conditions should be two separate organizations coexisting in the same place at the same time. They can have mostly overlapping memberships, and hopefully will, and they can cooperate on some things, and hopefully will, but they aren't really the same cause. Some people will want to battle Starbucks but won't want a new system. Some people will want a new system but won't want to battle Starbucks. Trying to have one organization that does both things just clogs up both things.

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 09:02 pm Post subject:

A lot of people are afraid to unionize a factory because so many have closed up and went to Mexico. Workers are very uncertain of their economic future and I am too. Unions are not very popular anymore as they once were. If workers get aggressive then the owners of factories flee the borders with their machines leaving an empty building. I have never read once that workers in the U.S. have ever tried to stop the employer from taking the machines out of the building. It seems as though American workers lie down and take the capitalist abuse.

Mike wrote:

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 11:02 pm Post subject:

I don't even know what union dues are needed for. Some of today's unions have a strike funds, and if there's a strike then the people get paid a little bit out of it. Dues that go to pay office holders are a waste, because it's not supposed to be a career for anyone, and the more a union office becomes someone's career the more the union ceases to be a union and turns into just another tax, just another payroll deduction. What else is needed -- printing a monthly newsletter?

Posted: 17 Jul 2007 11:22 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 18 Jul 2007 11:40 pm Post subject:

Posted: 19 Jul 2007 12:39 am Post subject:

Would organized crime be a problem with the SIU? I know of a recent bust by law enforcement of a local union in or near Buffalo, NY. May have been the misdirection of union dues. On camera the local president looked like he was ready to kill someone and appeared capable to do it.

Posted: 19 Jul 2007 02:34 am Post subject:

Posted: 19 Jul 2007 02:49 pm Post subject:

Mike wrote:

Posted: 20 Jul 2007 03:36 am Post subject:

The SIU might have a big national headquarters, but I'm speculating about the possible advantages if it didn't have one. It's like the sign in some stores that advise everyone that the cash in the register is limited and most of the money is in a time-locked safe that the staff can't open. Why rob us? There's nothing here for you to take. Similarly, there have been times when courts issued financial judgements against labor organizations because of an illegal boycott or something. If the whole headquarters on paper consists of a table and a laser printer, there isn't much for the sheriff to confiscate.

Posted: 20 Jul 2007 03:45 am Post subject:

As someone who has worked with computers for 36 years, my professional opinion is that there's no such thing as breaking into a database unless it has been designed to permit it. All computer break-ins today are based on the system providing a command prompt which the cracker can talk to. The intruder know the available commands in that language. A properly designed network for either TLV or for electronic voting wouldn't have any general purpose command sequences. It would just accept the particular transaction it's interested in: what's your identification number, which item on the menu do you choose, okay, done, goodbye. Any other read/write/execute entry would be a syntax error.

Posted: 20 Jul 2007 05:06 am Post subject:

You know more about computers than I do. A properly designed software for the network won't have any sort of break in. Would that mean hackers could not break into the system? From what you wrote the LTV electronic transactions would be far superior than the current money system.

Where is Dave?

Posted: 20 Jul 2007 01:21 pm Post subject:

Yes, I'm convinced that a computer network can be made which hackers can't break into. Earlier I tried to avoid the word 'hacker' and so I said said 'intruder' instead, because the people who actually call themselves hackers don't break into computers, but are better describe as geeks who enjoy devising fun stuff with computers, most of which is honest and legal. The capitalist media are the ones who associated the term hacking with electronic breaking-and-entering.

Posted: 20 Jul 2007 10:32 pm Post subject:

This goes back to March in this topic:

Lepore: "SLP articles over the years have said that the SIU should only be started when it can be big from the first day."
Searles: "I have to call you on that one Mike. I do not recall reading such."
Lepore: "When I find something I'll post it here."

I just ran across one such comment, in the preface to "The Burning Question" signed only by the name "The Publishers", in the 1952 edition of "Socialist Landmarks", page 125. It says: "As an organization, the I.W.W. has long since ceased to exert any influence. In contrast to the political organization of Socialism, the economic organization must have numbers in order to justify its existence."

I know there were other comments of this type but I don't remember where they are.

I never understood that idea that the party can start small but the SIU can't.

Posted: 21 Jul 2007 05:00 am Post subject:

Quote: