Bob Crow and Tony Benn, some of us aren?t in mourning?. ---- The ?left? in Britain, those
socialist factions inside and out of the Labour Party, are mourning the loss of two of
their key stalwarts and possibly best known voices, Bob Crow the former transport union
(RMT) leader, and Tony Benn, former Labour (nuclear) Energy Secretary and one time
leadership hopeful. While we mean no disrespect to those whose loss is felt personally,
family and friends, anarchists do not share this sense of loss of great leaders of the
?working class? movement. ---- Indefatigable as they were defending their positions or
union interests, our rejection of their contribution is based on more than the memory that
Tony Benn was part of the government that ordered the military occupation of Northern
Ireland or that ?bon viveur? Bob Crow earned more 5 times the average salary of the
members he represented. Had their careers been free of blemish, the course and causes they
stood for remain anathema to us as revolutionaries and to the interests of social
emancipation.
For all its apparent anger and clarity, the Left they fought for will be capitalisms last
hope. Its belief that the working class can never reach more than a trade union
consciousness, that we need the leader(dictator)ship of the party, that by getting us
involved in the charade of democracy it will get to lead or seize power and create the
workers state, then watch it ?wither away?, actively opposes the revolutionary overthrow
of capitalism.
Capitalisms temporary mask of invincibility has once again fallen and is leading us to
where capitalists always lead us: crisis, unemployment, environmental disaster and
latterly, war. Reform, no matter how well intentioned, prolongs the bosses rule and the
prospect of our collective ruin. The historic question has never gone away, though at the
moment becomes clearer by the day. Capitalist barbarism or its overthrow? War or revolution?
The left feels resurgent, and is rallying with a sense of urgency and vigour, calling for
unity to combat capitalisms excesses. We are not with them, because we are not part of the
?left? wing of capitalism. Capitalism is not our enemy because of its excesses; conflict,
exploitation, famine, and destruction. These are its inevitable symptoms, not exceptional,
but central to its functioning. Capitalism threatens us all because of its normality. Its
reduction of us to individual producers and consumers, smashing our collective instincts,
exploiting our work, isolation and our dreams. How better to oppress and manipulate us for
all its other self serving aims; nationalism, profit and the state.
Capitalism is not a system of management, it is a social relationship based on the
operation of the law of value, the pursuit of profit through exploitation, the
accumulation of the labour of others. Its structures ? the nation, corporation, wage
labour, state and government ? are its means to this end. Revolution is not a change of
management, it is the utter rejection and destruction of that relationship and the
dispossessing of those who benefit from it. Anything that allows the state, money, the
operation of the law of value to continue is counter revolutionary.
As anarchists, we reject the right and the left of ?capitalist management?. We believe
that revolutionary demands cannot be diluted. Reformist demands are dishonest and derail
the class struggle. We believe that only the working class is capable of developing a
revolutionary consciousness through its autonomous self activity in the course of its
class struggle. We are part of this class, not separate from, or outside it. We do not
?intervene? externally as leaders, we participate in solidarity as equals. The state is
not reformable, nor usable. It is the political instrument of bourgeois class oppression,
its abolition is central along with the abolition of money, the market and the wages system.
We are neither on the left nor of it, and calls for unity are calls to save capitalism in
another guise. Only social revolution offers humanity the last chance to create a truly
human society, neither left nor right, but liberated and free.
-A for Manchester Anarchist Federation
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