- Jonathan Neale
This article is an attempt to say something about a debate on the British left about whether neoliberalism has changed the working class in ways which make struggle weaker. the author argue that neoliberalism has changed us in ways that make struggle harder, and easier, and different, and more explosive.
Something has to be fixed
For two years I have been trying an experiment in Britain ans the US. I say to someone :"Lots of people believe that there is something terribly wrong with this country- it has to be fixed - it won't be fixed - and no one is public life speaks for me."
Almost everyone nods and say, "Yes. That's me. I think that."
Every social occasion I go to now, in the pub, people over for a meal, a family do, the conversation turns to: what can we do?
This is a conversation about class, although people often don't put it to themselves that way.
Let's remind ourselves what class means. It's a relationship. A worker is anyone with a manager. The working class is everyone with a manager.
Some people say class has changed, and matters less now. that's wrong. Class has changed, and it matters more now. Our noses have been rubbed in class inequality every day for years. Inequality has grown in almost every country in the world. The power of management has increased at almost everyone's work. There is an epidemic of petty bullying and petty humiliation. Everyone has a story of something management did that invaded their dignity or a basic value.
Inequality increased right across our lives. Every increase in inequality is also an attack on some workers. A library closure, for example, is also an attack on library workers. And the language and values of the market are everywhere.
So people are full of hurt, anger and longing. It's not just that they hate the Tories. (Some do, some don't.) It goes deeper. They despair, and feel trapped.
What happened? What can we do?
How We Got Here
Our union movement in Britain used to be deeply decent and reformist. From 1939 to 1975 our grandparents built various kinds of rank and file networks. At the core were shop stewards, short strikes and a constant struggle over control at work. This was true of miners, car workers, dockers, hospital cleaners and social workers.
Steward, union leaders and workers were all trying to get a bigger piece of a growing economy. People's lives were getting better. Workers were more and more confident. Militants began to believe that confidence was crucial - each little victory could lead on to the next.
Serious Trouble
Then capitalism ran into serious trouble. Profits fell about 1970 and have stayed low. Capitalists in Britain and everywhere launched what we now call neoliberalism. This was an attempt to get profits back up by cutting the share of the national income going to working people. That meant holding down wages, benefits, pensions and services, trying to break our unions and making everyone more unequal.
Neoliberalism was not a hobby for the powerful. It was critically important for them to make it work, because capitalism is competitive. Companies that don't make profits die. Without enough profits, Corporations fail.
But neoliberalism didn't work. Since 2008 we have all been trapped in a long economic crisis, with low profits and high unemployment. the capitalists' reaction has been austerity. That isn't working either.
But after 1970 our side, the workers, the people with a manager, ran into troubles too. The first problem was the collapse of "communism" in 1989. The soviet Union was socialist like cats are mice, and like torture is love. But even a lot of people in the Labour Party thought that Russia was somehow an alternative to capitalism. When that fell, almost everyone accepted the idea that communism had not worked and was not possible.
