Workerism
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Workerism is a name given to different trends in left-wing political discourse, especially anarchism and Marxism. In one sense, it describes a political position concerning the political importance and centrality of the working class. Because this was of particular significance in the Italian left, it is often known by its Italian translation, Operaismo. In another sense, 'workerism' refers to the glorification of the culture of the working class, independent of their historical role.
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[edit] Workerism as revolutionary praxis
- See also Autonomism and Autonomist Marxism
Workerism (or Operaismo) is a political analysis, whose main elements were to merge into autonomism that starts out from the power of the working class. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, known as operaist and autonomist writers, offer a definition of operaismo, quoting from Marx as they do so:
- Operaismo builds on Marx's claim that capital reacts to the struggles of the working class; the working class is active and capital reactive.
- Technological development: Where there are strikes, machines will follow. "It would be possible to write a whole history of the inventions made since 1830 for the sole purpose of providing capital with weapons against working-class revolt." (Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 15, Section 5)
- Political development: The factory legislation in England was a response to the working class struggle over the length of the working day. "Their formulation, official recognition and proclamation by the State were the result of a long class struggle." (Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 10, Section 6)
- Operaismo takes this as its fundamental axiom: the struggles of the working class precede and prefigure the successive re-structurations of capital. [1]
Some workerists approach social movements by recognising that most people active in broader social movements are workers, and seeks to inject forms of organisation based on workplace organising into these social movements. The notable attempt by the Autonomist organisation Lotta Continua in Italy failed, and the organisation dissolved itself into the broader workers and social movements as an Autonomist movement. By the mid-70s, the operaist movement had become knowm as autonomist.
[edit] Workerism as a negative cultural phenomenon
More broadly, workerism can imply the idealisation of workers, especially manual workers, working class culture (or an idealised conception of it) and manual labour in general. Socialist realism is an example of a form of expression that would be likely to be accused of workerism in this sense.
The charge of workerism is often levelled at syndicalists. Traditional communist parties are also thought to be workerist, because of their supposed glorification of manual workers to the exclusion of white-collar workers.
This use of the term was the most common English language use during the twentieth century.
[edit] Lenin's accusations of workerism
V.I. Lenin charged a number of Russian socialists with being workerist for opportunistically following the political or cultural movements of the working class, instead of holding a separate Marxist political position.
[edit] Further reading
Insurgent Identities: Class, Community and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune by Roger V. Gould (1995 University of Chicago Press) ISBN 0-226-30561-9
