Radical Chains by Chris Nineham;

Author:Chris Nineham;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781789049367
Publisher: National Book Network
Published: 2023-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The events of 1968 exploded this kind of economistic thinking. They showed that class struggle can take sudden leaps even when there is no ‘dramatic’ economic crisis and when the left is unresponsive. Those sceptical of workers’ capacity to resist were missing the fact that in periods of growth in the productive forces, workers acquire new needs, and that the gap between their needs and the available purchasing power grows wider. Even in relatively favourable conditions for capital accumulation overall, fear of losing out internationally also still forces governments to move against workers in ways that can lead to generalisation. Especially at moments of wider questioning in society, the connections between politics and economics then suddenly become clear.

In 1968, the accumulated confidence that had been built out of economic struggles and the political apathy that accompanied them took on a new aspect. Workers had been organising effectively without much support from union leaderships. Their grievances had largely been ignored by social-democratic parties. The result was that their alienation could flip over into revolt:

The concept of apathy or privatisation is not a static concept. At a certain stage of development – when the path of individual reforms is being narrowed, or closed – apathy can transform into its opposite, swift mass action. However, this new turn comes as an outgrowth of a previous stage; the epilogue and the prologue combine. Workers who have lost their loyalty to the traditional organisations, which have shown themselves to be paralysed over the years, are forced into extreme, explosive struggles on their own.197

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