this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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It's both. It happens because of regulation (otherwise there'd be nothing stopping businesses from exploiting you even harder than they already do) but as has been said many times, regulations are written in blood. They weren't passed out of the goodness of anyone's hearts, but as a capitulation to labour organising.
Well, they are ignored the moment labor loses the power to demand their enforcement.
I try not to emphasize regulations. Genuine power never comes from words.
Of course not. But what are we organising for, if not our rights? In our society, those rights are upheld by law. We organise to make those laws happen. And , when it comes to it, to behead them and make our own laws.
Laws are made by the powerful few.
Power for the masses comes from the groundul up.
We organize to build our own power, toward our own interests, to challenge the systems that support the interests of elites.
Yep, in our current neoliberal capitalist system. This is what we live in, which is why it's what I'm describing.
I know, but we don't have that yet. That's the goal.
Indeed. No need to repeat my own beliefs at me ;)
It has always been the same under representative democracy. Elite bodies serve elite interests.
The postwar period took its form due to strong labor, and the Bretton Woods system, arising in the aftermath of the Depression and amidst the Second World War. The period was the exception, not the rule, for capitalism under liberal democracy.
Laws are at best one tool of many, not the final objective, for labor.
I'm literally an anarcho-communist, you don't need to tell me this. I have already said this. I'm only defending regulation because they're our best tool for immediate results under liberal democracy, and I have already said before that it can only be achieved through violent demonstration, and I've also said that to achieve our real goals we need to get even more violent and get the guillotines out for full on revolution.
Stop preaching my own opinions at me like you're trying to convert me lol. We're on the same side.
I may have misunderstood your view. Mine is that legislation is mostly symbolic. The real work is on the ground.
I'm sorry if it seemed I was picking fights.
I am in complete agreement with you. I only differ in that legislation can be used in our present liberal democracy to help us, but I definitely don't think they'll be convinced easily.
Sorry that I wasn't clearer earlier. Tbh I don't say commie shit upfront most of the time because I never know if I'm dealing with a lib.
I think the point of disagreement is the actual meaning of legislation.
Laws create no magic force on anyone. They are rather merely occurrences within the same overall system in which we all interact. The resistance by the powerful for some law to be created derives from the same source that informs their behavior once its creation is completed.
Power from the masses is required to make a law meaningful, which to my mind, is good enough reason to consider laws almost meaningless.
So, are you arguing that workers shouldn't push for regulation and legislation that secures their rights? Like, I never suggested they were magic. Or that they were perfect and made everyone behave perfectly. Don't put words in my mouth. But they can secure a level of safety for workers that is necessary for us to survive if we're gonna continue to live in a capitalist hellhole. Legislation is how we got 40 hour work weeks and safety measures.
I am arguing that the security and value of the legislation is only assured by the power on the ground, by the organization of workers, to press for their enforcement and their preservation, in the same interests by which such legislation originally was demanded.
I specifically object to your earlier language, that the laws, or regulations, are "written in blood". I think the metaphor is misleading.
If the masses begin resting easy the moment legislation is enacted, then no real victory has been achieved.
The same power from the ground must be maintained, and if possible, expanded, in order for the working class to have meaningfully advanced
For example, I would rather have strong unions and no legal rights for workers, compared to the inverse scenario, because unions can assert power in an absence of legal rights for workers, but legal rights simply may be retracted or ignored the moment the working class loses real power.
I am not arguing necessarily that no one should push for legal rights, only to avoid making them the locus of emphasis, and to avoid ascribing to them some special status.
Then don't rest easy. I never said that, you just decided to add it on for something to complain about.