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.

(This was my response to The Nation’s forum on “Reimagining Socialism

www.thenation.com/doc/20090323/ehrenreich_fletcher)

We have seen how the Obama campaign and his eventual victory rekindled engagement in the political realm for millions of people, some for the very first time and many of them youth. His message of “hope” and “change” resonated with a broad spectrum of the population. And what was once called an apathetic generation—my generation, the largest ever—came out in droves to the poll and the streets, knocking on doors and engaging with strangers about politics. What this political moment reveals is that we were not and are not apathetic. Rather, youth, and society as a whole, has been acting out on a rational assumption, “there is no alternative, so why expect one.” We shape our expectations based on what we think is realistically attainable; otherwise, we set ourselves up to be let down every waking hour. If nothing else is concretely put forth to be attained, people are not going to desire to get rid of what they have now, however little, for more uncertainty.

This is where the Left has failed. We have been experts at telling people what is wrong with the system. Now that the system is showing its true colors on a mass scale, and our criticisms and analyses are vindicated, where does that leave us? The market as an institution is being scorned outright by everyday people. The profit driven economy has threatened life on earth as we know it. What do we have to say? “We told you so!”? That’s not going to work this time. No longer can we call out the American Dream as a myth for the majority of Americans. We need to create a new dream—one based on equitable cooperation and sustainability and is also tangible and can stand up to critical review. Luckily our political moment offers us a second chance (or our third, fourth, or fifth!).

More opportunities exist now not merely because of present economic and ecological crises; for most of us we are constantly in crisis already. Yes, this backdrop has created a sense of urgency but there is also a sense of hope and the feeling that we can have a better world; whether it was fueled by the Obama campaign or not, it is present, and thousands, if not millions, of people are ready to heed the call and are already taking action. However, this rejuvenation will not last if the new wave of enthusiasm does not join teams with a vision for the future and plan on how to get there. If we want people to start building a bridge to a new future, we need to have a clear picture of what’s going to be on the other side of the bridge, and we need to know what kind of bridge to build; otherwise, we can’t expect people to pick up the tools in the first place. In other words, what institutions will 21^st Century Socialism, or whatever you want to call a desirable post-capitalist economy, actually have, and what mechanisms do we propose to build the power to realize them? There is still time for us to step up to the plate and call our shot and make it the economy the people built.

This require us to go beyond vague values and notions of equality and workers democracy, though these should guide our vision. Unlike some who have replied to the lead article by Ehrenreich and Fletcher, I do not think it is utopian to offer actual alternatives. In fact, it is utopian to believe that masses of people in our society will fight for something they do not yet know, or that old institutions. like markets, can be salvaged and deliver desirable outcomes. People have been struggling against systems of domination and exploitation for hundreds of years; they have experimented with different forms of movement organization and economic arrangement. Can we not learn from the past? Do we always have to start from scratch?

With that said, our future post-capitalist economy has no place for private ownership of productive property, markets, hierarchal division of labor, or income based on ownership, bargaining power or output. All are go against building an economy based on equitable cooperation and sustainability.Therefore, 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; productive property should be controlled by all of society; and hierarchal 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. These institutions together are usually called Participatory Economics.

This is not a blueprint, per se, but a set of guiding institutions. Just like capitalism is different in every country depending on a host of factors, so will a participatory economy.

We also need a vision for a new political system, cultural and community relations, kinship relations, and how we relate to the environment; all are just as important as the economy. Our vision for society should be holistic. Armed with our new vision, we are able to inspire and provide a real end goal for people, as well as inform our here and now work and strategy. Furthermore, our strategy needs to be rooted in material reality, not letting our vision relegate us to refusing to engage with or within institutions which we despise. Rather, our vision should be a tool to guide and judge the efficacy of our strategy on the road to building power.

Today, that means building the broadest based progressive alliance possible, with a focus on strengthening the power of the most oppressed sectors of society within that alliance—workers, people of color, women, LGBTQ, youth and all of the intersections. This “historic bloc,” if you will, must neutralize the most reactionary elements of society and those in power, while building up the revolutionary wing of the mass democratic movement by winning over more and more people. We must push for reforms like a Green New Deal and stave off climate catastrophe, lifting people out of poverty and creating solid infrastructure that benefits the most oppressed. Workers rights need to be strengthened by passing the Employee Free Choice Act, and there needs to be health care for all through a single-payer system. At the same time, new institutions and ways of organizing our lives need to be built: workers councils, peoples’ assemblies, free schools, and more.

So, yes, this means we need organization. It must be like be like no other this country has seen. A revolutionary organization means millions of people. It must be democratic, flexible, and diverse, but disciplined and unified. It needs to engage in communities, unions, households, elections, and every other sphere of social life. Most of all, it needs to be mostly comprised of and take leadership from those people take the brunt of our society’s systems of dominance, of which capitalism is only one.

Readers may have noticed that I used the words “must” and “need” repeatedly. This is because there are no other words to describe the task at hand. Again, we are presented with an opportunity to really shape the future course of our society and the earth. As a young person his mid 20s, however, I realize that we need to get rid of old dogmas and practices and be more visionary and strategic than any social movement before us, if we are to win. I have faith that we can do it, and I know that millions of other young people do to. The question becomes: are we ready to win?