Visions of Spring

by John J. Cronan Jr.

(This is an edited version of an essay that appeared in Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21^st Century. ed Chris Spannos (AK Press, 2008 )).

We seem to face a serious class crisis within our movements and organizations that has taken two forms: 1) the issue of class has fallen off the list of priorities, and 2) those that do spend adequate attention to it, have the wrong class analysis, rendering it useless.  This pamphlet seeks to briefly, but succinctly, tackle and address these problems, beginning with the latter. The traditional Left’s two class analysis will be scrapped in favor of introducing a third class—the coordinator class; and after identifying this new class, I will discuss the ramification it has on our movements and organizations. It should be noted that class is going to be examined in a more simplistic nature than it should; however, keep in mind that the author believes that class can never been defined as an individual oppression separate from other oppressions that stem from community and cultural, kinship, and authority relations; but rather, each is actively entwined with one another (what is often called “complementary holism”).

What is Class?

Class is defined as a group of people that has shared interests, circumstances, and powers by virtue of its on-going position in the functioning of the economy; though income may be a factor due to a class’ increased bargaining power, it is not as essential as the liberal notion of class makes it out to be. Furthermore, a class must be able to, at least potentially, develop a consciousness that gives it the ability and will to act autonomously. The position of a class results, as well, in it forming its own psychology and culture distinct from other classes. Moreover, class can be defined by its role in social production.  Now, the controversial question is, what positions and roles are the basis for determining a class?

The traditional Left’s answer to this question is that class antagonism is solely based on the relationship to the means of production.  A small group of people, capitalists, own the means of production, and workers are those people who must sell their labor for a wage to the capitalists, because they do not own the means of production. Based on this definition of class, we can agree that capitalists and workers both, indeed, constitute two classes. The capitalist class has shared interests in maximizing profits and increasing control over the production process—at the detriment of the workers, of course. To help ensure so, they organize business organizations, political parties, clubs, etc.  Capitalists also develop a culture and mentality of greed and superiority, as well as in many cases, thinking of workers as mere statistics and instruments of their wealth.

Workers, on the other hand, have an interest in extracting the highest wages possible for the least amount of work, the exact opposite of the capitalists’.  And again, to pursue this, workers form unions and other workplace organizations, sporting clubs, political parties and organizations, etc.  The fact that workers must sell their labor, even if they do not want to do the work, results in an alienation from one’s labor. And given their economic position, workers are obviously going to pursue and live within different cultural conditions. This is the basis of the traditional Left’s class analysis, and the root of its conception of class struggle (Of course, there are more nuanced analyses, but these features remain at the core of most of them).

The Coordinator Class

This analysis held by the Left—including multiple tendencies with in it—however, is wrong. Though we do accept that the relationship to the means of production is a criteria for class division, a very important one, it is not the only one.  It is not only theoretical wrong but historical examples prove otherwise, also.  There is a third class that lies in between workers and owners, labor and capital—the coordinator class.  It arises from the hierarchal division of labor, giving coordinators the relative monopoly of empowering knowledge and skills, and as a result they have considerable say over their own jobs and the jobs of workers below them. These are the waged and/or salaried high-level managers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals.

Coordinators defend their skill, knowledge, and authority against workers below them, and fight to gain more wealth, autonomy, and bargaining power from the capitalists above them. They see capitalists as obnoxious impediments to reason and believe that their technocratic solutions to economic and social production are superior.  Conversely, coordinators occupy economic positions which generate feelings of self-worth and capability, and in turn, view workers paternalistically with a great sense of elitism and just rewards, often adopting conceptions as “workers are intellectually incapable or psychologically ill-equipped to administer their own lives without our compassionate aid.” They also form their own organizations to protect their class status—such as professional associations like the American Medical Association (AMA), for doctors, and the American Bar Association, for lawyers[i]—or, even, create organizations to help them ascend to the position of new ruling class, which we have seen done under the guise of a “vanguard” party. The latter point, that the coordinator class could have the desire and ability to become a new ruling class, is key to solidifying it as a class.  It also allows us to better understand the so-called “socialist” or “communist” revolutions of the past, where in fact they were “coordinatorist.” In other words, the coordinator class can be explicitly anti-capitalist but not be for workers self-management, or they could have a commitment to workers self-management but not support institutions and arrangements conducive to such ends.

As we can see, coordinators have their own shared interests, circumstances, power, psychology and culture, and ability to become a new ruling class; therefore it fits our definition of a class.

Another Look at the Working Class

In addition to recognizing a whole other class, the existence and definition of the coordinator class can help us better define the working class.  Now instead of not owning the means of production and merely working for a wage being sole criteria for the working class, we can say that the working class is comprised of wage or salaried workers who do mostly rote, onerous, and disempowering tasks, and have their work defined for them by coordinators and/or capitalists. This is a result of having been systematically denied access to the skills, knowledge, time and energy, and decision-making power to have it otherwise. Subsequently, in the United States and nearly all other industrialized countries, the class breakdown goes like this: 1-5 percent capitalist, 15-25 percent coordinator, and 70-80 percent working class (keeping in mind that there are various strata within the each class, but right now, we are just trying to get a basic understanding of a three class outlook).

Class and Students/Young Adults

Using a three class analysis, we can also better understand where college students and young adults fall on the whole class map—something that will be important to grasp with the growing student movement and the need for working class students to have a self-managed role within them.  Classism definitely exists within student and young adult movements, but if some are not workers and some are obviously not capitalists, or children of capitalist, then what are they?  The class identity of a college student largely depends on their family background and their expected job placement once they get out.  If a student is working class by upbringing and working class by job or likely job, then they should still be considered and will most likely identify with the working class. If a student is coordinator class by upbringing and coordinator class by job or likely job, then they are still part of the coordinator class.  The student or young adult, graduate or not, will stay in that class slot until there own circumstances overcome it. Let me give two examples.

First, say there is a coordinator class student working a low-wage service job while in school. They would not all of the sudden be lumped into the working class. They still have the familial ties and experiences, culture and psychology, of a coordinator class upbringing that will greatly distinguish them from a working class student, whether that student has a job at the moment or not.  However, their experience could lead them to be more sympathetic to the issues of working people.

Second, say there is a coordinator class student who has recently graduated but has been completely been cut off from their parents, either by choice or not, and is forced to get a working class job. Again, it does not make them working class because they do not lose their background and higher bargaining power, connections, etc; however, over time, if they continue to be in a working class slot, they may come to identify, rightfully, as working class—but not immediately or in the near future.

As a result of this analysis, I hope that students will rightfully identify as working class when  appropriate and create forums where they can discuss concerns with others who have the same prior experiences, life situations, and probable futures, based on their class, such as caucuses; and I hope that coordinator class students will not wrongfully take up space in these forums because they lack a class analysis that fails to understand that not all wage laborers are working class; and conversely, that many students are working class.

Coordinator Class and Organizing

I believe that the failure for most activists and organizers, especially those that would consider themselves revolutionaries, to embrace the concept of the coordinator class is highly detrimental and will hurt in the long run if not remedied.  We see already in major coalitions—addressing a broad rang of issues—that a coordinator class has taken control of them, whether intentionally or not.  Many claim to represent working people and have internal democracy; usually this is not the case. The fact that groups on the “Left” suffer from this problem comes to no surprise to anyone that understands the dynamics of the coordinator class.  Moreover, even proclaimed “anti-authoritarian” groups and collectives have fallen victim to coordinator class control. Besides the fact that some organizations’ structure is already somewhat top down on paper and that others are supposedly not, let me give an example of how hierarchal class relations could be reproduced in a situation where voting was done by one person, one vote—even in an organization dedicated to participatory democracy..

Say there are ten people who are part of an activist organization on campus, anywhere in the country, and each person is guaranteed an equal vote on all the issues concerning them. Also, let’s say that all ten are highly active and dedicated. However, at the same time, only three people were doing empowering work like taking care of the chapter’s finances, writing all of the press releases, and speaking at all of the events.  The other seven just hand out fliers, attend events, paint banners, etc.  When it comes time to vote on issues, the seven people not doing the empowering work technically have the ability to out vote the three doing the empowering work, on paper at least.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, however, this will never happen because the seven people won’t know enough about what the hell is going on to make an informed decision, or not feel confident enough to speak definitively and challenge the word of the other three; and even more likely, they might be too worn out from doing rote and onerous tasks to even show up to the meeting. What we have now is a minority  monopolizing decision-making, as well as missed opportunities at developing the potentials of the other seven. This will happen because the corporate division of labor still exists and those with the most initial knowledge, experience and skills will occupy these positions, thereby the structure that allows for the coordinator class to rise is still in tact[ii].

So what do we do to remedy this class division within our own movements and organizations? Well, first, we need to recognize there is a problem—so far, that has not been easy. Second, we need to incorporate the idea of balanced jobs into our movements. Basically, we rearrange the tasks that make up jobs and institutional positions, so that there is a relatively equal amount of empowering and disempowering tasks. For example, speakers at events and those that write press releases should be rotated, as well as each time pairing a more experienced member with someone less experienced. This way, the latter can learn and not feel on their own, and next time they will be the experienced one paired with a lesser experienced person, and so on.  This should be done wherever possible, and in cases where delegation of tasks and/or authority might be needed for periods of time, those positions should have term limits, frequent rotation, immediate recall, and clearly set guidelines for responsibilities. Also, to tackle the problem, in general, of unequal development, study groups and other such activities should be held within organizations and their local chapters, so that members can gain the knowledge and skills needed to bridge any gaps. Third, our movements need to incorporate and struggle for reforms that positively affect working people and perpetuate a trajectory of change that challenges the root of class society; for example, fighting for green jobs and health care for all .  Fourth, we need to recognize the need for and right to form strictly working class organizations, allowing them their right to self-management, just as we now recognize the necessity and right of people of color, woman-identified, queer and trans folk, and other oppressed groups to do so. Finally, we need to actively combat classism within our movements and address it head on.

Classism

The problem of coordinator class domination not only violates participatory democratic decision-making within movement institutions; it is also a problem because working class people are not idiots, contrary to coordinators’ beliefs, and will be weary to join coordinator class dominated movements and organizations. Why? Because they tend to be classist.  Would a person of color want to join a racist movement and/or organization? Probably not, and we have seen the ramifications of this, also.  In fact, working class people tend to have more visceral reactions towards coordinators because most of them have never actually met a real capitalist before.  The coordinators are the ones who hassle them at work, discipline them at school, and betray them in their unions

Classism can take many forms structurally by the mere fact that a movement and/or organization has coordinator leadership/majority membership, but it can appear structurally also in the form of extremely long meetings, and no money to fund working class people’s transportation to important events,  Then there are the actual interactions between working class people and coordinators. Many organizations have seen both kinds of classim within their ranks and have been consciously combating it, but more attention definitely needs to be paid.

Here is a list of The Top 10 Mistakes of Middle-Class Activists in Mixed-Class Groups, from the ClassMatters.org website. What they refer to as the Professional Middle-Class is quite similar to what I call the coordinator class (however, in the end, our class analyses and specifications are different).

1. Overlook necessity
2. Overlook intelligence
3. Romanticize working-class people
4. Impose inessential weirdnesses
5. Hide who they really are
6. Think they know it all
7. Think they know nothing
8. Focus on education more than organizing
9. Focus on goals and tasks more than people
10. Take over

I would also like to show some examples of  what they call “inessential weirdness”:

• Herbal tea and no coffee at an event
• Waving hands in the air instead of applauding
• Holding hands or chanting at a meeting
• Elaborate, ritualized consensus decision-making processes
• Nudity at rallies
• Property destruction at rallies
• Speaking in acronyms or jargon
• Serving tofu as the only main dish at a coalition event
• Sitting on the floor; providing no chairs, only cushions
• Unwashed hair or clothing
• Bandana facemasks

If you would like to a more in-depth look at inessential weirdness, go to www.classmatters.org . However, for now, people might get the idea.

Finally, there is the issue of working class culture being looked down upon by the Left (more so, amongst what you could call the white Left). Working people are looked down upon for eating at McDonalds, but it’s fine for people on the Left to eat at a vegan restaurant, where the workers are no less exploited.  They are looked down upon for watching sports, even though they get some fulfillment out of it and it allows them to talk to their peers at work or at school the next day, Oh, but wait! It is fine to watch certain sports, like golf and tennis.  They are looked down upon for reading the New York Post, while the Left reads what they themselves call the lying, war mongering, New York Times; meanwhile, the working class person is reading the only section of the paper that tells the truth, the sports page. These are somewhat of generalizations but speak up if it does not resonate with you. The list could go on…

The Road Ahead

I have presented the traditional Left’s two class analysis and shown that it comes far too short of being sufficient in developing a framework for class analysis and struggle. In it’s place, I have argued that a third class, the coordinator class, should be recognized as a class between labor and capital. This new class arises not from the relationship to the means of production but from the division of labor. Additionally, I showed how our movements tend to be coordinator class dominated and classist, and I presented some possible solutions.  I could be wrong, but I think the proof is in the pudding. Take what I have said to a working class person and see how much resistance you get. Then, do the same with someone who would fall under what I recognize as the coordinator class. I am willing to bet that there will be many more coordinators denying that they exist than working class people saying coordinators do not exist. My purpose, however, is not to be right out of spite; but, instead, to bring the issue of class back to the forefront, side by side with issues of race, gender, sexuality, authority, environmental destruction, and others. I hope what I have presented can at the least fuel the ever growing discussion on the topic, and at best convince a few people.  Either way, my ultimate goal for economic relations is classlessness, and recognizing the coordinator class is the first step towards achieving it.

Recommended Reading

Albert, Michael. Parecon: Life After Capitalism. New York? Verso, 2003

Albert, Michael, and Robin Hahnel. UnOrthodox Marxism. Boston: South End Press, 1978.

—. Looking Foward.  http://www.parecon.org/lookingforward/toc.htm

Walker, Pat. Between Labor and Capital: The Professional-Managerial Class. Boston: South End             Press, 1979.

www.ClassMatters.org

www.parecon.org

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[i] One of the key roles of the AMA, for example, is to prevent nurses from doing the work reserved for doctors. That way doctors can justify the pay they receive and their status, at the same time disempowering the even greater pool of nurses, which ensures doctors’ economic position will not be challenged.

[ii] Again, remember that this is merely focused on class as a whole. Race, cultural, kinship, and other oppressions and factors are also at play. For example, if these relations are reproduced, it usually means that straight, white, men will benefit, give that they occupy many of the coordinator class positions in society and generally have more privilege.

By John Cronan Jr.

[Contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by ZCommunications]

We are in the middle of both economic and environmental crises. As we look for solutions, the two cannot be separated—matters of the economy are entwined with the environment and vice versa. Our profit-driven market economy ensures that only a tiny minority of people decide where and what to produce, at the expense of workers who are disempowered and controlled through a network of corporate hierarchies, and at the expense of the natural world. As climate change has worsened, it has been working class people who are most affected, especially women and people of color.  Subsequently, the effort to achieve environmental justice must also be an effort to achieve economic democracy and classlessness—an economy where no group rules over another. In the spirit of the strategic and visionary approach of much of today’s environmental movement, this article will look at what practices and policies, specifically around issues of class and the economy, the environmental movement should—and in many cases has—embrace that will ensure it will be a leading factor in the struggle for a clean, green, equitable future.

An Equitable and Green Economic Vision

Only when people have a say in decisions proportionate to the degree they are affected—economic democracy, or self-management—will they be able to truly take environmental concerns into account and enact green policies. Until then, it is always going to be a matter of trying to persuade and pressure people in power to take action, and even then, the current institutions will stand in the way, as you’ll see why.  Economically speaking, this requires institutions that are conducive to and foster self-management, as well as evaluate the true social costs of economic transactions; for example, pollutants should be priced high to discourage their use, and environmentally friendly goods should be low cost.

Proper determination of social cost and the corresponding prices is made impossible by the existence of markets as a mode of allocation, because markets do not have a mechanism to properly price items (as a result, mispricing everything) and fail to take externalities—like environmental effects—into account[1]. Self-management is stifled by private ownership of productive property (not personal possessions like toothbrushes and clothes but land, business, capital, machinery, etc) and corporate divisions of labor between workers, managers and other coordinators, and bosses. This leads to workers being denied decision-making input and to all the main economic actors—capitalists, coordinators, and workers—not having enough information to make responsible, informed decisions that take into account accurate social costs, such as effects on the environment. Our vision should be to replace these undemocratic economic and environmentally destructive institutions with ones complementary to our aims. Markets need to be replaced with a form of federated (meaning decisions are made at the appropriate level—i.e. district, city, state, federal—with each level accountable to the one below it) and democratic planning between workers and consumer councils[2]; productive property should be controlled by all of society; and corporate division of labor should be replaced by balanced jobs—where empowering tasks and rote work are shared by everyone. All of these factors are necessary for a classless, equitable, and green economy.

Once we know this, the task is to outline alternatives to these institutions as our vision for the future—simply stating a set of values will not be enough. There is more to this than just daydreaming of what we want the world to be. Rather, it is crucial to how and what we fight for in campaigns in the present and near future. This is important for having a direction to our movements that will make it worthwhile for oppressed sections of society to be apart of. For example, if our vision calls for a future economy that gets rids of capitalists but structural elevates a coordinator class —mangers, doctors, lawyers, planners—above workers, working people will not be running to join our movement[3]. Also, our vision is instrumental to incorporating the seeds of the future in the present. Oppressions stemming from class, race, gender, and sexuality—just to name a few—are so interconnected and entwined that to build a diverse movement with its roots in communities most affected by our current oppressive and environmentally destructive system, we need to incorporate liberatory practices in our movement that reflect our new vision.

A Real Green New Deal

The reforms that we struggle to implement in the here and now should reflect our vision and leave us in a position closer to our end goal.  Practically applied to economic and environmental issues, it translates into judging our actions by how much they empower working class people—individually and materially as a class—and at the same time shift our economy away from the use of dirty energy and dirty modes of production.  We see this taking form in the current efforts to get green jobs and renewable, clean energy—a Green New Deal—at the forefront of our political agenda.  Multifaceted approaches like these are exactly what we need to be doing. Accompanying our demands for green jobs should also be demands for the passage of laws that strengthen the ability of workers to organize—like the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA would make is easier for workers to join a union and come to first contract agreements, as well as stiffen penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.

The increase in workers’ bargaining power that comes with unionization—and with increased freedom of workers to take action and organize independently from unions—will allow them to dictate more and more of what goes on in our economy; thereby increasing their capacity to demand the creation of green jobs and funding for such measures. However, encouraging more rank and file, bottom-up participation is needed to counter the top-down structures and tendencies of the current labor movement. There are also many other problems within the labor movement that EFCA does not address. I believe in the current context it’s passage is essential, but, again, the goal is an empowered, working class engaging in self-management, not merely increased union rosters.

Additionally, the prospect of workers and organized labor having more clout opens up space for workers currently staffing dirty energy plants to take job actions in support of clean energy. For example, there have been several actions to try and stop the building of new coal plants and to shutdown the operations of current ones. What if the workers constructing the new plants or working inside existing ones put down their tools in the name of both preserving a habitable planet for their grandchildren, and for want of dignified work that was not so dangerous and harmful to them?  Moreover, what if they demanded that the resources and capital being put into building the new plant and operating the existing one be used to produce renewable, clean energy, and retrained them to occupy the jobs necessary to do so? With a stronger workers movement, one that has more social and political power, this doesn’t seem so far fetched, and it would definitely hasten the transition to a clean energy economy. However, without such a movement and the conditions to build one—like more favorable labor law—the prospects of such action happening lessen. Furthermore, without the real power to demand the reallocation of resources into clean energy industry that will create jobs for the former workers of the dirty energy industry, there is little incentive for workers to risk their jobs and take action.

All of the dirty energy facilities that we are against give working people incomes, but are  also against their interests in the long run (such facilities are killing the planet, and if we get rid of dirty energy, those particular jobs won’t exist); therefore we need to create a situation where alternatives for them are available, so we’re not simply appealing to a moral high ground. Luckily, an approach that is trying to address the chasm between organized labor and the environmental movement is underway in the form of the Blue Green Alliance, which is a partnership between several labor unions and environmental organizations. It is the start of an approach that needs to flourish even more. The movement for green jobs, along with the passage of EFCA, will help create this situation.

It cannot be reiterated enough, however, that our goal is not to tame the market and simply redistribute a little more wealth; this would neither solve our climate crisis nor lead to economic democracy—though they are desirable in the short run.  Any proposed Green New Deal, therefore, must look to the federal government for initial aspects—like a green economic stimulus that provides funding for new green jobs and infrastructure—but look to “ordinary” people for its implementation, as much as possible. For example, we could feasibly demand a form of participatory budgeting involving local, democratically elected and accountable planning boards made up of workers and residents, who would form federations for greater geographical regions. These would be able to allocate resources for new public works projects and development.

Myriads of other arrangements could work and be desirable. The feasibility of their implementation depends on 1) the level of social power we can leverage, and 2) the existence of actual proposals to be implemented. The first is slowly growing, and its actual strength and potential for further growth can be debated. However, the second—Left proposals on how to allocate monies from such things as government stimuli and auctions from cap and trade programs —is, sadly, almost nonexistent, and therefore not even debated. I don’t claim to be qualified enough at the moment to give all the answers, but I encourage people to actually think about it and take it seriously; and maybe some can emerge out of the Reimagining Society Project[4].

When thinking of such things, we would do good to remember that by including the participation of everyday people—the people that are affected most by the environmental and economic crises—we are fostering the transformation to democratic economic arrangements. Natural resources, money, and machines are not the only inputs and outputs of an economy—so are people.

A Green New Deal must also include addressing the failed financial system. A big step towards this is to turn banks into public utilities. If we think of a green economy as an equitable economy, then such transformations will have to take place. As long as banking continues to been done in the private sphere, much of the progress made in the economy will always be at risk, and private dirty energy interests will have more opportunities to inhibit investment in green projects and continue investment in dirty ones.

For example, while Bank of America was ripping people off and kicking them out of their homes, they were also funding coal and the horrendous practice of mountaintop removal. Recently, after campaigns against them by groups such as Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide Boston, they agreed to phase out financing companies who use mountaintop removal. However, though it could be considered a victory there is no telling if any action will be made on this promise, and coal is still dirty without mountaintop removal. If Bank of America, and all other banks like it, was taken out of the private sphere and into the public, they are technically subject to public control and oversight. Demands like the elimination of coal financing can actually be considered a matter of popular will; currently it is, by law, only a matter of maximizing shareholder profit, so we have to rely on the “goodwill” of the banks. After making them public movements can claim a democratic mandate for something to be done. Of course, we all know how well our government listens to the people; struggles must still be waged, but the excuse, “they’re a private firm and have legal obligations,” can no longer be used. Imagine if the campaigns to stop Bank of America’s financing of coal and mountaintop removal—which raised tons of public awareness—were also coupled with demands to make banks a public utility? The point is, this needs to be looked at as not only an economic demand but also a green demand.

One of the most vocal advocates of making banks a public utility has been political economist, Leo Panitch, and I think it’s worth reproducing his thoughts on the issue:

In a complex society, you can’t have banking for the masses without having state guarantees of deposits. The system has been kept going on the basis of central banks acting as lenders of last resort. The case for the banks being brought into public ownership properly needs to be put on the agenda, much more vociferously than the left is putting it on the agenda.

I do not mean, as in Britain, just giving public capital to the banks and saying please operate on commercial lines, a move involving no executive powers whatsoever. I mean taking the banks properly into public ownership and changing the function of the banks, as Mitterrand did not do in France in the 1980s, so that the criteria on which they invest are redefined as social purposes, to be democratically determined[5].

In conjunction with reforming our current financial system, we should also begin—and in some cases, continue—to take the steps to create an alternative participatory one that can parallel a democratized current financial system (This will be talked about more below). It continues to become clear why the struggle for economic democracy and environmental justice are complementary, even when it might seem otherwise.

Inside Our Movement

As was mentioned, the form that our movement takes is as important as the policies we struggle to win. And if we are seeking a classless society, our movements should not be structured as to render them reliant on big donors or have coordinator class domination over leadership positions. With that said, that doesn’t mean we have to be purists—we need to face our objective reality. Right now, wealth is so concentrated and controlled by various foundations that we’ll need to rely more on them then is desirable; and workers are disempowered and worn out everyday that we will possibly have a disproportionate amount of people who come from privileged backgrounds in leadership positions. However, if we are serious about building a new future for generations to come, our movement needs to get over that hurdle. It will have to be transformative in that it helps change power relations between various institutions, as well as transforming the people who are part of the movement.  This entails creating a culture and structure welcoming to working people, and one which they have control over the direction.

Our focus should be to become as self-sustaining as possible. If we are growing, building, and making real gains, then we should be able to transition to greater reliance on our own participatory institutions for funding of projects like cooperative green businesses, as well as utilizing grassroots fundraising efforts; and any funds from foundations or donors should be no strings attached, to protect political independence. An important example of what I mean by “our own participatory institutions” is the creation of participatory credit unions and utilization of already existing Community Development Credit Unions (CDCUs). This is a way to ensure funds are available for the projects we need to build a strong, independent movement for economic and environmental justice, and at the same time create the financial infrastructure for a new participatory society[6].

As much as possible, our movement should try and distribute empowering tasks amongst its members—giving each person a vote in decisions is not enough. They need to actively participate in some aspects of planning and conceptualization that go into the items being voted on, such as what campaigns to pursue and other matters of strategy. They also need to be informed and have ownership of the ideas and concepts within our movement. One of the trickiest parts to all of this is time. Working class people tend to have less to time to do extra reading, research, and attend meetings. A focus on internal and accessible education can be an important tool to combat such problems. Moreover, regarding meetings, they should be as short and concise as possible, with a clear focus and agenda. This way time is not lost going in circles.

It will make all of this easier as long as we keep our movement rooted in the working class and other oppressed communities. Accountability and participation are the best roads towards democratic practices.

Conclusion

The environmental movement is vibrant, diverse, and growing. It has taken an approach to the burning (literally) issues of our time that is holistic, strategic, and visionary. Much of what has been laid out here is only meant to build on what has already been accomplished and written before. The message that the crises and solutions of the economy and environment are intrinsically linked is spreading. By moving forward with a vision of a clean, green future, let us remember that economic democracy is essential to environmental justice, and we will live to see our vision come to fruition.

Notes

1. See Against the Market Economy: Advice to Venezuelan Friends by Robin Hahnel for a damning case against markets <http://monthlyreview.org/080101hahnel.php>

2. Robin Hahnel describes this process at length in Overcoming Blind Spots In Left Vision: Participatory Planning, an opening essay for the Reimagining Society Project. <http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21474>

3. For a more in-depth look at the class structure I’ve laid out, read Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel’s, “A Ticket to Ride: More Locations on the Class Map,” in Between Labor and Capital, ed. Pat Walker (Boston: South End Press, 1979).
Regarding students, youth and class, see my essay “Did You Just Say Class?” Chris Spannos’ book, Real Utopia (Oakland: AK Press, 2008)

4. That’s right. Cap and Trade. I did not get into it because it sadly remains controversial on Left, and it deserves a whole piece of its own. However, a comprehensive cap and trade system—unlike any we have implemented thus far—is necessary to stave off climate crisis, pending the replacement of capitalism. It is yet to be published, but I feel it necessary to quote an article by Robin Hahnel that addresses the very question of the Left and cap and trade:

“It is one thing to play the role of Kafka and point out the ultimate absurdity of putting prices on different parts of a natural environment which is, in fact, a single interconnected ecosystem that all life, including human life, depends on. It is another thing to ‘denounce’ those who seek to increase the price of carbon emissions from zero, which it is at present, to a much higher price in order to force emitters who respond to market forces not moral appeals to take into account the damage their carbon emissions cause. It is one thing to insist that nature should belong to no one and everyone. It is another thing to sit on the sidelines when corporations are being awarded property rights to emit carbon dioxide while ordinary citizens receive none. It is one thing to point out that human beings should plan how to use and preserve the natural environment in a democratic and equitable way — bearing in mind that we are dealing with ecosystems whose complex dynamics we do not fully comprehend — rather than leave those decisions to be made very poorly by market forces. It is another thing to ignore the fact that decisions about how to use the environment are actually made, and will continue to be made for some time, by market forces where key prices — the price of carbon chief among them — are completely out of whack, and where the least responsible and deserving among us are taking personal advantage of this mis-pricing. Finally, it is one thing to say: ‘I don’t want things decided by market forces and market prices.’ It is quite another thing to say: ‘Even though things are being decided by market forces and market prices I don’t care what those prices are, and those who attempt to get prices ‘right’ are doing nothing more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.’”

His essay on the topic is a MUST read, and it can be found on his website. <http://www.robinhahnel.org/page5/files/Climate.042009.pdf>.

5. Qtd in Solidarity, <http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/01/04/marxist-economists-comment-again-crisis-3-leo-panitch-chain-broke-weakest-link>.

6. In the Reimagining Society Project essay, “Towards a Participatory Recovery Plan,” Atlee McFellin outlines the possibility and need to do such a thing. <http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21996>.

by John Cronan Jr.

originally appeared on zcommunications last year. http://www.zcommunications.org/blog/view/1990

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A friend of mine recently posted a Facebook note discussing the entwinement of race and class.  In it he posted two quotes from two very different people. The following are some quick thoughts I had in response to the quotes.

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“What more do they have to complain about? Who can they blame but themselves? Slavery is gone, segregation has been gone for four decades, hell, affirmative action is still government policy. Perhaps they’ve been spoiled by all of the handouts. Regardless, there’s no helping a group of people that, for some reason beyond me, does not want to be helped.” –Former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate, Rudolph Giuliani

“The current baby-boomer generation of whites is currently in the process of inheriting between $7 trillion and $10 trillion in assets from their parents and grandparents — property handed down by those who were able to accumulate assets at a time when people of color by and large could not.” Tim Wise, excerpt from White Like Me.

What Time Wise said deserves much attention, for many reasons. First of all, we live in an industrialized capitalist country. That means there are three major classes: capitalist, coordinators, and workers. Subsequently, at all times, wealth is going to go concentrated in the hands of the capitalists–roughly 2 percent of the population–and then in the hands of coordinators–about 20 percent of the populations. And the concentration of wealth at the top tends to pass on to future generations without much, if any, actual work involved. Robin Hahnel in his book, The ABCs of Political Economy, stated:

”A study published by United for a Fair Economy in 1997 titled ‘Born on Third Base’ found that of the 400 on the 1997 Forbes list of wealthiest individuals and families in the US, 42% inherited their way onto the list; another 6% inherited wealth in excess of $50 million, and another 7% started life with at least $1 million.”

Hardly picking yourself up by your bootstraps.

This is not a new phenomena in American capitalism. Therefore, if our country was founded on slavery and the subjugation of black people, as it was, then obviously not many of them will have a stake in the wealth that was accumulated in a time when they were systematically denied the right to accumulate any.

Well, what about after all that Jim Crow stuff and slavery ended, as Giuliani asks? What about the social mobility that has happened since the second half of the 20th Century? What about the better off sections of the working class and coordinator class? Being in the working class doesn’t necessarily mean you are poor, true. Class is more about power than it is income; income is just a by product of your bargaining power. However, social mobility is not as easy as politicians and mainstream economists make it out to be, even for the white worker. There was a time, however, when it was easier. In “The Death of Horatio Alger,” by Paul Krugman, cites a “classic 1978 survey found that among adult men whose fathers were in the bottom 25 percent of the population as ranked by social and economic status, 23 percent had made it into the top 25 percent.” However, this was only the 30 years or so after WWII–only a fraction of this time was after Jim Crow segregation was outlawed, and racism still was rampant. So, again, most Blacks were denied the chance to benefit from these opportunities.

Since that time, social mobility has dropped for mostly everyone. It’s worth quoting Krugman’s article at length:

“Now for the shocker: The Business Week piece cites a new survey of today’s adult men, which finds that this number has dropped to only 10 percent. That is, over the past generation upward mobility has fallen drastically. Very few children of the lower class are making their way to even moderate affluence. This goes along with other studies indicating that rags-to-riches stories have become vanishingly rare, and that the correlation between fathers’ and sons’ incomes has risen in recent decades. In modern America, it seems, you’re quite likely to stay in the social and economic class into which you were born.”

This was in 2003. Things have gotten much worse.

This period of workers getting less and less of a piece of the economic pie, was marked by a crisis in much of the American manufacturing industry. One industry was hit notably hard–the Auto Industry–and Black workers were affected the most. A study recently released by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “The Decline in African-American Representation in Unions and Auto Manufacturing, 1979-2004,” illustrates this fact. It says, in 1979, “2.1 percent of all African-American workers were employed in automobile manufacturing. By 2004, this share had fallen by more than one-third to 1.3 percent. By contrast, the share of white workers employed in auto manufacturing fell just 0.2 percentage points from 1.3 percent to 1.1 percent. The share of Hispanic workers also fell by 0.2 percentage points, from 0.8 percent to 0.6 percent.”

All of this coupled with rising rates of incarceration of Blacks since the 70’s, only begins to show that Blacks don’t merely suffer more so than whites in the economy and political system. Racism and white supremacy as a system of oppression has actually shaped the defining roles of our economic and political institutions–where Blacks are relegated to low skill, high intensity labor, low paid jobs in the economy (if any), and are criminalized for merely being Black. In times of worsening conditions for all workers, unless the right progressive measures are taken, it will only exacerbate racial socio-economic inequality. We are seeing this happen already with those affected most by the sub-prime mortgage debacle.