THE BAR posted:

Is it naive to believe, that when unions agree on a strike, it's probably because they have a case for it?

It just doesn't gel with the government's ability to refuse negotiations until they can force the matter. It all seems so backwards.

BonHair posted:

The larger issue is that actually their pay isn't that bad

KozmoNaut posted:

It's a huge issue going back to Tjenestemandsreformen in 1969, that "traditionally women's jobs" in the public sector are systematically underpaid, compared to "traditionally men's jobs". And of course the entire public sector in comparison to the private sector.

BonHair posted:

The larger issue is that actually their pay isn't that bad

Potrzebie posted:

When it comes to critical services its EXTREMELY difficult to win the PR game with strikes. Houses burning down b/c firefighters want more money? Greedy selfish assholes! Ppl getting worse care and even dying because of the cracy bad environemtn for people working in health care? Greedy selfish assholes! Teachers on strike causing a lost generation who will now forever be failsons? Greedy selfish assholes!

BonHair posted:

My point in saying that nurses are paid enough wasn't that they shouldn't get more, but that the way to achieve that could also be to bring everyone else down to their level, for example through the use of progressive taxation.

evil_bunnY posted:

Or just start eliminating dumbass loopholes. When we sold our first crib to buy our second one I did the math and figured out we’d essentially lived there for free. WHAT THE gently caress KINDA SYSTEM IS THIS.

evil_bunnY posted:

You can strike without compromising emergency/critical services.
Administrative strikes are a thing, and you can essentially withhold your labor for non-emergency work, and advertise your strike as such. House on fire? here we come! New build needs a fire inspection? Talk to the hand baby.

quote:

Or just start eliminating dumbass loopholes. When we sold our first crib to buy our second one I did the math and figured out we’d essentially lived there for free. WHAT THE gently caress KINDA SYSTEM IS THIS.

Potrzebie posted:

This is true, I guess the problem is that the unions are MT Suits instead of angry syndicalists then? Our why the gently caress are administrative strikes not a 24/7 thing in healthcare and other failed sectors?

BonHair posted:

Ask a teacher. Strikes within the system don't work when the employer side can just make a law to get their way.

And doing unlawful strikes would carry risk for the individuals participating, and that makes it much harder to do on a large scale, especially because people need to pay off their mortgage.

Potrzebie posted:

Lawful strikes seem an oxymoron to me. They are supposed to be against the power, not sanctioned by it. But I'm a keyboard warrior, never been on strike so I'm probably part of the problem.

Revelation 2-13 posted:

the state (even when governed by the social democrats) is 100% in support of capital

Revelation 2-13 posted:

Striking as has always been against capital, not the state, and they are (still) different things. However, in a weird horseshoe, u-turn, eternal recurrence, rhyming of history, the state and capital has semi-recently once again tied the knot. While they remain distinct, their interests has become almost completely entangled. Today it's a little more subtle than sending in the army to make cavalry charges against the early union movement like in the old days, but equivalent in the sense that the state (even when governed by the social democrats) is 100% in support of capital and try to suppress labour in various ways and will use violence (symbolic, economic and otherwise) to suppress unions if necessary.

Party In My Diapee posted:

Is it fair to say that unions have to a large degree become controlled opposition where the leadership will fold or be bought out as soon as the theater display of striking has been completed? I know nothing about this, but it seems to me like unions are also entangled into this agreement with capital and will not resist too much, combined with a lot of the worker members actually being anti socialist.

BonHair posted:

Ask a teacher. Strikes within the system don't work when the employer side can just make a law to get their way.

And doing unlawful strikes would carry risk for the individuals participating, and that makes it much harder to do on a large scale, especially because people need to pay off their mortgage.

Cardiac posted:

Something something the revolutionaries becomes the facto ruling class (see S in Sweden).
Or why communist countries were known for their secret police.

Since Marx had no idea on how to reach socialist utopia in practical terms, this is where the revolution ends.
And since the left refuses to learn from history, they also don’t learn from past mistakes, so this won’t change.

BonHair posted:

Also most "communist countries" are just some flavour of capitalist or oligarchic systems with a red flag slapped on top. Especially China and the Soviet Union.

Cardiac posted:

Something something the revolutionaries becomes the facto ruling class (see S in Sweden).
Or why communist countries were known for their secret police.

Since Marx had no idea on how to reach socialist utopia in practical terms, this is where the revolution ends.
And since the left refuses to learn from history, they also don’t learn from past mistakes, so this won’t change.

germlin posted:

And looking at future theres no lack of existential hazards rushing at us so maybe people will yet find a cause to rally around.

germlin posted:

Well here's the rub, no? While Marx was spot on iñ identifying wealth accumulation and its effect of top class working to suppress those beneath them his hypothesis of what must follow of reasonable division of labour and resources seems a leap of faith, the material you work with is humans after all. Even a most perfect revolution wears out its momentum in a few generations.

Soviet unions threat was a good bargaining piece for socdem parties and unions in western europe and scandinavia to wring concessions from elites and with its demise state and capital have tightened screws on labour for 30 years and likely will grow bolder still. Meanwhile lefts constitutioncy has had a little taste of wealth and wants nothing to do with new lumpenproles. Solidarity comes from community and shared life and experiences, not from statements.

MiddleOne posted:

If you're not willing and/or capable of striking, then you have no power but what law and contract provides. Unions did not become dominant institutions by being afraid of losing, but that sure as poo poo is spearheading their decline.

Esran posted:

Mr. Sunshine posted:

Stasi and Säpo, two organizations absolutely comparable when it comes to oppression and terror.

Esran posted:

Please reread the post. That was not what I was saying.

I was saying that secret police/domestic intelligence services exist in most countries in some form, but the level of repression is very variable. Not all communist countries have Stasi-style secret police, and several non-communist countries have that type of organization, so Cardiac going "Silly lefties, commies = Stasi, amirite guys" is a Bad Post.

Cardiac posted:

Something something the revolutionaries becomes the facto ruling class (see S in Sweden).

Cardiac posted:

Or why communist countries were known for their secret police.

quote:

The IB affair (Swedish: IB-affären) was the exposure of the operations of the IB secret Swedish intelligence agency within the Swedish Armed Forces. The two main purposes of the agency were to handle liaison with foreign intelligence agencies and to gather information about communists and other individuals who were perceived to be a threat to the nation.

The meaning of the name IB is not known with certainty. It is often said to be an abbreviation of either Informationsbyrån (The Information Office, Information Bureau) or Insamling Birger ([Information-]Gathering Birger, after its director Birger Elmér). This is, however, speculation, and neither name was in general use within the organization.

The key persons leading to the exposure of the IB were journalists Jan Guillou and Peter Bratt and their original main source Håkan Isacson.[1] The two reporters revealed their findings in the leftist magazine Folket i Bild/Kulturfront on 3 May 1973.[2] The story was immediately picked up by many leading Swedish dailies.[3] Their revelations were that:

There was a secret intelligence agency in Sweden called IB, without official status. Its director Birger Elmér was reporting directly to select key persons at cabinet level, most likely defence minister Sven Andersson and Prime Minister Olof Palme.
The Riksdag was unaware of its activities.
People with far-left views had been monitored and registered.
IB agents had infiltrated Swedish left-wing organisations and sometimes tried to induce them into criminal acts.
There were Swedish spies operating abroad.
IB spies had broken into the Egyptian and Algerian embassies in Stockholm.
The IB co-operated extensively with the Central Intelligence Agency and Shin Bet, in contrast to the official Swedish foreign policy of neutrality.

See also: Office for Special Assignments

In the following issues of Folket i Bild/Kulturfront the two uncovered further activities of IB and interviewed a man who had infiltrated the Swedish movement supporting the FNL, Vietnamese National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam - at this time the FNL support network was a backbone of the radical opinion - and among other things, visited Palestinian guerilla camps in Jordan. The man worked for IB and had composed reports that, it was surmised, IB later passed on to the Israeli security services which resulted in the camps being bombed. The man, Gunnar Ekberg, claimed in his interview to have broken with IB, but in fact was still working for the organization. This was exposed in the following editions of FiB/Kulturfront, but by that time, Ekberg had gone underground. Swedish authorities claimed they were unable to locate him to stand trial. In 2009, he released an autobiography of his years in IB, attacking Guillou in particular for having misrepresented facts, been involved with Palestinian militant groups (particularly the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine), and worked for the KGB; and alleging widespread terrorist ties to the groups and persons monitored by IB. He also confirmed that he had been transferred from IB to the Mossad, an Israeli intelligence agency, immediately prior to his exposure.

Guillou had opened the first article by accusing the director of IB of murder on these grounds. The same issue exposed a Swedish naval captain who had passed reports about the harbor security of Alexandria (implying, again, that IB were exchanging information with the Israelis); also the story of a woman who had, on the orders of IB, spied out potential bombing targets in Egypt.

The magazine had information from a previous employee of IB, Håkan Isacson, who claimed that IB had broken into the offices of two political organizations: the FNL Groups, a pro-North Vietnamese organization, and the Communist Party of Sweden, a Maoist political party. This concerned a Jordanian citizen and a stateless citizen. A wiretap was installed in the latter case. After this uncovering, the defense minister did admit that IB engaged in espionage outside of Sweden and infiltrated organizations within Sweden, including wiretaps.

Evidence was put forth in 1974 that IB had built up a large network of agents in Finland, which included the Finnish foreign minister Väinö Leskinen. This network's main mission was to gather information regarding the Soviet Union. IB had no contacts with the Finnish Security Intelligence Service, since it was believed to have been infiltrated by Soviet agents.

Cardiac posted:

And since the left refuses to learn from history, they also don’t learn from past mistakes, so this won’t change.

quote:

The theory of the productive forces, sometimes referred to as productive force determinism, is a widely disseminated variation of historical materialism and Marxism that places primary emphasis on technical advances as the basis for advances and changes in the social structure and culture of a given civilization.

Karl Marx posted:

[I]t is only possible to achieve real liberation in the real world [...] by employing real means[.] [S]lavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule and spinning-jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. "Liberation" is a historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by historical conditions, the development of industry, commerce, agriculture, the conditions of intercourse [Verkehr].

Premier Vladimir Lenin posted:

Get down to business, all of you! You will have capitalists beside you, including foreign capitalists, concessionaires and leaseholders. They will squeeze profits out of you amounting to hundreds per cent; they will enrich themselves, operating alongside of you. Let them. Meanwhile you will learn from them the business of running the economy, and only when you do that will you be able to build up a communist republic. Since we must necessarily learn quickly, any slackness in this respect is a serious crime. And we must undergo this training, this severe, stern and sometimes even cruel training, because we have no other way out.

You must remember that our Soviet land is impoverished after many years of trial and suffering, and has no socialist France or socialist England as neighbours which could help us with their highly developed technology and their highly developed industry. Bear that in mind! We must remember that at present all their highly developed technology and their highly developed industry belong to the capitalists, who are fighting us.

President Deng Xiaoping posted:

We did a great deal of work between 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded, and 1976, when Chairman Mao Zedong passed away. We were particularly successful during the period of transition from new-democratic revolution to socialist revolution, in which we carried out agrarian reform and then, in the period of the First Five-Year Plan [1953-1957], engaged in large-scale industrialization and completed the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce.

We began to experience some trouble in 1957, when “Left” ideology appeared. It was necessary for us to combat bourgeois Rightists, but we went too far. In 1958 the spread of “Left” thinking led to the Great Leap Forward and the movement to establish people’s communes. That was a serious mistake, and we suffered because of it. During the three years of economic difficulty from 1959 through 1961, industrial and agricultural output dropped, so that commodities were in short supply. The people didn’t have enough to eat, and their enthusiasm was greatly dampened. At that time our Party and Chairman Mao Zedong enjoyed high prestige acquired through long years of struggle, and we explained to the people frankly why the situation was so difficult. We abandoned the slogan of the Great Leap Forward and adopted more realistic policies and measures instead. The year 1962 saw the beginning of recovery, and in 1963 and 1964 things were looking up, but our guiding ideology still contained remnants of “Left” thinking.

In 1965 it was said that certain persons who were in power in the Party were taking the capitalist road. Then came the “cultural revolution”, in which the “Left” ideology was carried to its extreme and the ultra-Left trend of thought became rampant. The “cultural revolution” actually began in 1965, but it was officially declared only a year later. It lasted a whole decade, from 1966 through 1976, during which time almost all the veteran cadres who formed the backbone of the Party were brought down. It was they who were made the targets of the “cultural revolution”.

After the downfall of the Gang of Four, we began to set things to rights, that is, to correct the ultra-Left trend of thought. But we still maintained that it was necessary to uphold Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. When we met in 1981, I talked about keeping to the socialist road, upholding the people’s democratic dictatorship, upholding leadership by the Communist Party and upholding Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Now we call these the Four Cardinal Principles. If we do not uphold them in our effort to correct ultra-Left thinking, we shall end up “correcting” Marxism-Leninism and socialism.

We summed up our experience in building socialism over the past few decades. We had not been quite clear about what socialism is and what Marxism is. Another term for Marxism is communism. It is for the realization of communism that we have struggled for so many years. We believe in communism, and our ideal is to bring it into being. In our darkest days we were sustained by the ideal of communism. It was for the realization of this ideal that countless people laid down their lives. A Communist society is one in which there is no exploitation of man by man, there is great material abundance and the principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs is applied. It is impossible to apply that principle without overwhelming material wealth. In order to realize communism, we have to accomplish the tasks set in the socialist stage. They are legion, but the fundamental one is to develop the productive forces so as to demonstrate the superiority of socialism over capitalism and provide the material basis for communism. For a long time we neglected the development of the productive forces of the socialist society. From 1957 on they grew at a snail’s pace. In the countryside, after ten years — that is, in 1966 — the peasants’ income had risen only very slightly. Although peasants in some areas were better off, those in many other areas still lived in poverty. Of course, even that was progress, compared with the old days. Still, it was far from a socialist standard of living. During the “cultural revolution” things went from bad to worse.

By setting things to rights, we mean developing the productive forces while upholding the Four Cardinal Principles. To develop the productive forces, we have to reform the economic structure and open to the outside world. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee we began our reform step by step, starting with the countryside. The rural reform has achieved good results, and there has been a noticeable change in the countryside. Drawing on our successful experience in rural reform, we embarked on urban reform. Urban reform, a comprehensive undertaking involving all sectors, has been going on for a year now, ever since the second half of last year. Since it is much more complicated than rural economic reform, mistakes and risks are unavoidable, and that’s something we are quite aware of. But economic reform is the only way to develop the productive forces. We have full confidence in urban reform, although it will take three to five years to demonstrate the correctness of our policies.

In the course of reform it is very important for us to maintain our socialist orientation. We are trying to achieve modernization in industry, agriculture, national defence and science and technology. But in front of the word “modernization” is a modifier, “socialist”, making it the “four socialist modernizations”. The policies of invigorating our domestic economy and opening to the outside world are being carried out in accordance with the principles of socialism. Socialism has two major requirements. First, its economy must be dominated by public ownership, and second, there must be no polarization.

Public ownership may consist of both ownership by the entire people and ownership by the collective. The publicly owned sector of our economy accounts for more than 90 per cent of the total. At the same time, we allow a small private sector to develop, we absorb foreign capital and introduce advanced technology, we encourage Chinese and foreign enterprises to establish joint and cooperative ventures and we even encourage foreigners to set up wholly owned factories in China. All that will serve as a supplement to the socialist economy.

From such ventures workers get wages and the state collects taxes, and part of the income of the joint and cooperative ventures goes to the socialist sector. An even more important aspect of all these ventures is that from them we can learn managerial skills and advanced technology that will help us develop our socialist economy. This cannot and will not undermine the socialist economy. As of now, there has been only limited foreign investment, far less than we feel we need.

As to the requirement that there must be no polarization, we have given much thought to this question in the course of formulating and implementing our policies. If there is polarization, the reform will have been a failure. Is it possible that a new bourgeoisie will emerge? A handful of bourgeois elements may appear, but they will not form a class.

In short, our reform requires that we keep public ownership predominant and guard against polarization. In the last four years we have been proceeding along these lines. That is, we have been keeping to socialism.

Let me add that our socialist state apparatus is so powerful that it can intervene to correct any deviations. To be sure, the open policy entails risks and may bring into China some decadent bourgeois things. But with our socialist policies and state apparatus, we shall be able to cope with them. So there is nothing to fear.

Our comrades have published a collection of some of my speeches, entitled Build Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, which includes, for instance, my opening speech at the Twelfth National Party Congress. I don’t know if you have read it. What, after all, is socialism? The Soviet Union has been building socialism for so many years and yet is still not quite clear what it is. Perhaps Lenin had a good idea when he adopted the New Economic Policy. But as time went on, the Soviet pattern became ossified. We were victorious in the Chinese revolution precisely because we applied the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism to our own realities.

In building socialism we have had both positive and negative experiences, and they are equally useful to us. I hope you will particularly study our “Left” errors. History bears witness to the losses we have suffered on account of those errors. Being totally dedicated to the revolution, we are liable to be too impetuous. It is true that we have good intentions, that we are eager to see the realization of communism at an early date. But often our very eagerness has prevented us from making a sober analysis of subjective and objective conditions, and we have therefore acted in contradiction to the laws governing the development of the objective world. In the past China made the mistake of trying to plunge ahead too fast. We hope you will give special consideration to our negative experiences. Of course one can learn from the experience of other countries, but one must never copy everything they have done.

(Excerpt from a talk with Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and President of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front).)
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/deng-xiaoping/1985/112.htm

quote:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Xi-Jinping-points-China-to-Communist-Revolution-2.0
Xi Jinping points China to Communist Revolution 2.0

BEIJING -- Chinese President Xi Jinping on Aug. 17 announced policies toward achieving "common prosperity," a redistribution of income arrived at through new remuneration, tax and donation systems.

Twenty-six hours after the policies were unveiled, tech giant Tencent Holdings said it would provide 50 billion yuan ($7.8 billion) to the common prosperity initiative.

China needs income redistribution, but even with the flurry of announcements, societal tensions are mounting.

This is because Xi's policies are becoming ever more similar to those implemented by Mao Zedong. Here are some of the echoes of Mao's policies China hears today:

Attack local tyrants, divide up the farmland:

In its early days, the Chinese Communist Party won the hearts of peasants by seizing farmland from its owners and redistributing it to the peasants.

Donations under the initiative of common prosperity are supposed to be voluntary, but the policies call for "adjusting excessive incomes and prohibiting illicit income." These words have great power in a country where leaders, not laws, determine what should and should not be done.

Public-private joint management:

Under this economic reform, "delighted" private company owners were forced to dedicate their enterprises to the party.

In July, the Education Ministry said private schools should be operated by public authorities or abolished under certain conditions. A private high school in Henan Province won praise by swiftly deciding it "will donate everything to the government."

In another example, some cash-strapped private companies that relied on government rescue funds have been put under state control. Also, many private enterprises such as Alibaba and Tencent have internal party organizations that can serve as the foundation for de facto nationalization.

Supply and marketing cooperatives:

Along with people's communes and rural credit cooperatives, these took charge in distributing produce and supplying materials while heeding a rations system.

In June, the national organization of supply and marketing cooperatives -- all but forgotten since Deng Xiaoping introduced his reform and opening-up policy in 1978 -- made a surprise announcement: It will team up with the People's Bank of China and other parties to establish a business model covering everything from production to supplies and marketing to credit in rural areas. If materialized, it's a return to the era of the people's commune.

Why is Xi implementing policies that could make capital markets uneasy and put the brakes on innovation? If the "revival of the Chinese race" is the Chinese dream, policies that deny the path set by Deng and hamper economic development will certainly backfire.

But a close examination of Xi's ideology reveals a different ambition. Below are excerpts of important speeches about the developmental stage of Xi Jinping Thought.

"Marxism argues that humankind will inevitably take a path to communism, but it will be achieved through historical phases."

"Comrade Deng Xiaoping said socialism is the primary stage of communism and China is at the primary stage of socialism, in other words, at the undeveloped stage."

"With that judgment, he promoted reform and opening-up, made historic achievements and ushered in a new era."

"We already have a rich material basis for realizing new, even higher goals."

These remarks are in line with the historical materialism of Marxism. Karl Marx argued that capitalism's contradictions prompt socialist revolutions and eventually lead to communism. Ironically, revolutions occurred in countries where capitalism was undeveloped, and experiments to create communist societies ended in failure.

From this point of view, Xi has not denied the path taken by Deng. Through the inevitable developmental stage of the "maturing of a capitalist economy and the exposure of contradictions" brought about by Deng, Xi is leading China to Communist Revolution 2.0, an attempt to renew society.