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The Debate on Workers' Control

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The Debate on Workers' Control MAY-JUNE 1969 Ernest Mandel Vol. 30 No. 3-Whole No, 192 Published bimonthly by the Internotionol Socialist Review Publishing THE DEBATE Association, 873 Broadway, New York, N. Y., 10003. Second Class postage paid ot New York, N, Y. ON WORKERS’ CONTROL Editor, TomKerry Monaging Editor, DickRoberts AssociateEditor, George Novack 1. What is Workers’ Control? BusinessManager. Beverly Scott The demand for workers’ control is on the order of the day. The Contents FGTB [Federation Generale des Travailleurs de Belgique— General Workers Federation of Belgium] is calling a special congress on this The Debate on Workers’ Control subject. Many British trade unions have adopted it. In France the most left-wing workers and students have made workers’ control one of their by Ernest Mandel 1 main demands. And in numerous plants and factories in Italy the van- guard workers not only call for workers’ control but do their utmost— The Financial Empires as at Fiat —to put it into practice at the right times. of America’s Ruling Class This is an old demand of the international working class. It arose in the course of the Russian revolution. The Communist International 24 by Dick Roberts adopted it at its third congress. It played an important role in the rev- olutionary struggles in Germany in 1920-23. The Belgian unions Austro-Marxism and Stalinism raised this demand during the twenties. Trotsky incorporated it into the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. Andre Renard 1. Otto Bauer A Representative [Belgian left-wing trade union leader] took it up again towards the end Theoretician of Austro-Marxism of the ftiies. by Pierre Frank 36 But in the course of the past two decades, the demand for workers’ 2. Some Affinities Between the control has fallen into disuse in the broader labor and trade-union movement. Two generations of workers have received no education on Social Democracy and Stalinism this subject. It is, therefore, anurgent matterto define the meaning and by Gerry Foley 41 the implications of workers’ control, to show its value in the struggle 3. Ernst Fischer Solicits Otto for socialism, and to demarcate it from itsreformist variants— codeter- Bauer for the Popular Front: 1936 44 In trade union andpolitical circles of England and Western Europe there is intense interest and growing debate around the question of SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 1 year 6 issues $2. ~; 2 years 12 Issues $4.75. Add SO cents per workers’ control of production. This is a contn”butionto this discussion year for Conwda, Latin America ond overseas; a single copy 50 cents, bundles 35 cents by Ernest Man&l, the noted Mamist economist, which appeared in o copy for five or more domestic or foreign. jive consecutive issues of the Belgian weekly newspaper Mandel edits, =--- . La Gauche: December 21, 1968 to January 18, 1969. - 2 INTERNATIONALSOCIALISTREVIEW MAY-JUNE 1969 3 mination [mixed labor and management decision-making in theplants] requires a total, extraparliamentary confrontation between embattled and “participation.” workers and the bourgeois state. The program of anticapitalist struc- Workers’ control is a transitional demand, an anticapitaliststructural tural reforms has precisely this aim —bringing the workers to start the reform par excellence. This demand stems from the immediate needs struggles that lead to such a confrontation. Instead of this, our “purist” of broad masses and leads them to launch struggles that challenge the critics are generally satisfied with struggles for immediate demands, very existence of the capitalist system and the bourgeois state. Wor- all the while talking in abstractions about making the revolution, with- kers’ control is the kind of demand that capitalism can neither absorb out ever asking themselves, How will the revolution really be made? nor digest, as it could all the immediate demands of the past sixty years— from wage increases to the eight-hour day, from social welfare legislation to paid holidays. At this point we can dismiss an objection raised by sectarian “purists”: An eloquent example: May 1968 in France “Calling for anticapitalist structural reforms makes you a reformist,” they tell us. “Doesn’t your demand contain theword ‘reform’?” The general strike of May 1968, following the one in Belgium in This objection is infantile. It is also dishonest — at least on the part December 1960-January 1961, offers us an excellentexample of the key of those who do not oppose fighting for reforms on principle. We might importance of this problem. be able to understand the argument, difficult as it may be, if it came Ten million workers were out on strike. They occupied their factories. from certain anarchists who reject the fight for higher wages. These If they were moved by the desire to do away with many of the social people are wrong, but at least they can be given credit for being log- injustices heaped up by the Gaullist regime inthe ten years of its exist- ically consistent. ence, they were obviously aiming beyond simple wage-scale demands. But what can be said of those who support all the struggles for in- The way they rejected, en masse, thefirst’’Grenelle agreements” [reached creasing wages, for decreasing the workweek, for lowering the pension between the de Gaulle government and the union federations May 27], age, for double pay for vacations, for free medical care and free med- which would have given them an average wage increase of 14 per icines, but who, at the same time, reject anticapitalist structural re- cent, clearly reflects this wish to go farther. forms? But if the workers did not feel like being satisfied with immediate They don’t even realize that they, too, are fighting for reforms; but demands, they also did not have any exact idea of precisely what the difference between them and us is that they fight only for those re- they did want. forms that capitalism has time and again proved it is capable of giv- Had they been educated during the preceding years and months in ing, of incorporating into its system, reforms which thus do not upset the spirit of workers’ control, they would have known what to do: the system itself elect a committee in every plant that would begin by opening the com- On the other hand, the program of anticapitalist structural reforms pany books; calculate for themselves the various companies’ real has these very special characteristics: it cannot be carried out in a manufacturing costs and rates of profit; establish a right of veto on normally functioning capitalist system; it rips this system apart; it hiring and firing and on any changes inthe organization of the work; creates a situation G wal power; and it rapidly leads to a revolu- replace the foremen and overseers chosen by the boss with elected fel- tionary struggle for power. Wage increases— as important as they may low workers (or with members of the crew taking turns at being in be for raising the level of the workers’ fighting spirit, as well as their charge). cultural level— can do nothing of the sort. Such a committee would naturally come into conflict with the em- Actually, the whole argument of our “purist” opponents is based on ployers’ authority on every level. The workers would have rapidly a childish confusion. Fighting for reforms doesn’t necessarily make one had to move from workers’ control to workers’ management. But a reformist. If that were the case, Lenin himself would be the number this interval would have been used for denouncing the employers’ ar- one reformist, for he never rejectedthestruggle to defend the immediate bitrariness, injustice, trickery and waste to the whole country and for interests of the workers. The reformist is one who believes that the organizing local, regional and national congresses of the strike and fight for reforms is all that is needed to overthrow capitalism, little by workers’ control committees. These, in turn, would have furnished the little, gradually, and without overthrowingthe power of the bourgeoisie. striking workers with the instruments of organization and self-defense But we proponents of the program of anticapitalist structural reforms indispensable in tackling the bourgeois state and the capitalist class are not in any way victims of this illusion. We believe in neither the as a whole. gradual advent of socialism nor theconquest of power by the electoral, The French experience of May 1968 shows one of the main reasons parliamentary road. We are convinced that theoverthrow of capitalism why the demand for workers’ control holds a prime position in a 4 INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTREVIEW MAY-JUNE 1969 5 socialist strategy aimed at overthrowing capitalism in industrialized We are living in a period of more and more rapid technological countries. change— the third industrial revolution. In the course of these changes, In order for united struggles around immediate demands, culminat- various branches of industry, various occupations, various jobs, dis- ing in the general strike with occupation of the factories, to lead to appear in the space of a few years. The capitalists constantly strive the struggle for power, workers cannot initiate the most advanced to subordinate the work of men to the demands of more and more form as something abstract, artificially introduced into their battle by expensive and more and more complex machines. the propaganda of revolutionary groups. It has to grow out of the At the same time that manual labor is little by little disappearing very needs of their fight. The demand for workers’ control (which in- from the factories, the number of technicians directly involved in pro- volves challenging the power of thebourgeoisie at all levels and which duction is increasing. The level of training and education of workers tends to give birth, first in the factory, later in the country at large, is rapidly rising.
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