There is nothing inevitable about fightbacks or struggles for change. Although the conditions that most people labour and live under are dire and getting worse, this does not necessarily mean that people will come together to challenge the powers that create these conditions.
The majority of people in Canada have seen their standard of living drop. Years of neo-liberal policies implemented by all parties at all levels of government have seriously undermined the ability of many people to meet even basic needs - severe cuts to welfare, the introduction of workfare, regressive changes to employment standards, the de-listing of many health services, deadly water supplies, the on-going attack on the public sector, and the list goes on. People in British Columbia are now experiencing an onslaught similar to that experienced in Ontario and Alberta.
Looking further afield, we see the deteriorating conditions of both working-class and middle-class people in Argentina providing the backdrop for the massive demonstrations sparked by government restrictions on people's access to their bank accounts. Given the sweatshop conditions of many workers across the world, the increasing devastation of communities due to war and the many other effects of capitalist globalization, the conditions are ripe, one could argue, for revolution.
Sober reflection, however, suggests otherwise. Something else besides misery is required to bring together the forces needed to make real change: militant, strategic and mass-based self-organization. Building this kind of response to oppression and exploitation is as challenging a task as the words suggest.
"Militant" means that organizing must use strong and disciplined tactics to strike at the centres of power in a capitalist society in which sexism, racism and heterosexism are rampant. Militant organizing must be informed by a strategic analysis of both the issues that confront people and the ways to most effectively build individual fightbacks and broad social movements.
Often, government and corporate attacks make us reactive and limit the kinds of demands and activities that form the basis of fightbacks. Furthermore, different groups of people, all of whom are being affected by capitalist globalization and conservative ideologies, are pitted against each other. Often we fail to recognize common struggles and to take the steps required to ensure that our organizing extends beyond our comfortable left scenes.
To build mass-based self-organization, it's not enough to rely on the heroic actions of small numbers of radicals. Nor can we rely on labour leaders that may talk tough, but do nothing to build (and often undermine) workers' abilities to democratically and actively determine what they want and how they will fight for it. Self-organization requires the leadership and participation of workers and oppressed people themselves. It is the opposite both of top-down "leadership" and of substituting the actions of the militant few for the hard work needed to mobilize larger numbers of working people.
The upsurge of activism in the US and Canada seen since Seattle seems very fragile when we examine how ineffective we have been in building a movement against the war in Afghanistan and the racism embedded in post-September 11 legislation, or against the Liberals in BC or the Tories in Ontario. Or in building strikes that win real victories for workers. Our victories to date do not equal the efforts put into activism. We have to debate seriously why this is the case, examine the limitations of our organizing and discuss how we can overcome them. Much of this issue of NEW SOCIALIST is intended as a contribution to these important discussions.
Although many struggles against the onslaught of neo-liberalism are still defensive, the notion that a better world is possible is spreading. To make this more than just a noble ideal, we think it is essential that many more people adopt a long-term perspective of broad-based, strategic organizing to build the power of the working class and oppressed people.