The International Journal
of INCLUSIVE
DEMOCRACY, Vol. 6, No. 4 (Fall 2010)
Spain: Beyond the general strike*
EDITORIAL TEAM OF THE CATALAN ID GROUP
Abstract
The paper explores the problematique of the general
strike against the neoliberal cuts recently promoted by
the Spanish government and focuses its reflections on
the autonomous movement which emerged in Barcelona.
Introduction
The measures imposed by the Spanish government in
recent months in the form of welfare cuts are the
biggest threat to the rights of workers, pensioners and
other popular sectors since Franco. These cuts are one
more step in the process of marketisation in which we
have been immersed for over 200 years and, also, a step
for the full integration of the Spanish economy into the
neoliberal globalisation imposed on EU members through
the Maastricht, Lisbon Treaties, etc.
Effectively stopping this process implies nothing
less than replacing the market economy and
representative “democracy,” the twin pillars of the
current system that has led to the growing concentration
of power in the hands of a privileged minority, for new
institutions that ensure the equal distribution of
economic, political and social power among all people.
The general strike of 29 September, and particularly the
social mobilisation conveyed through the Barcelona Assembly, may be a
starting point for many people to go beyond the struggle
for reformist demands and advance a social paradigm
shift that enables the construction of a new form of
social organisation.
The rise of the
Barcelona assembly
After the
citizens of some European states in recent months, and
in particular Spanish citizens, have suffered
one of the biggest welfare and labor cuts in
history (undermining of social controls on labor markets and
particularly the employers’ right of dismissal, the
relentless erosion of collective bargaining,
salary reduction, freezing of pensions, etc. —all in the
context of the “four freedoms” introduced by the EU
Treaties mentioned above), on 15 June
the UGT and CCOO trade unions called for a general
strike on 29 September. Seizing the opportunity of this
call and taking into account
the well known inefficiency and venality of these
unions in defending
workers’ interests,
various social sectors were involved in
establishing the Barcelona Assembly. This initiative to
launch an autonomous and truly combative movement,
organized outside the trade unions, that goes beyond a
single day of striking and to become an outcry against
the ruling elites and their socioeconomic cutbacks, was
a very important step in bringing power back to the
people from the various bureaucracies controlling it.
The Barcelona
Assembly has set the goal of building horizontally,
bringing together all those affected by the crisis
(students, unemployed, pensioners, workers, etc.), a
response that effectively expresses the people’s
opposition to government cuts. In the first meeting,
held on 29 June there was an agreement to “seek
common points which enable the implementation of
resistance measures against the attacks on the working
class, not bowing our heads and fight for the rights of
workers organizing the response with district, town and
workplace assemblies, etc.”. From this first meeting
several assemblies have been organized at the district,
workplace and university levels as well as some general
assemblies to prepare for the strike and face the
struggle beyond it.
One such assembly celebrated in mid September,
attended by more than five-hundred people, decided the
schedule for the upcoming demonstrations, as well as the
date of the next assembly.
The
Barcelona Assembly has adopted a democratic functioning
that calls for the participation and solidarity of
everyone from the local level, through coordinated
delegates of the neighborhood and workplace assemblies.
The day of the strike and its aftermath
The
occupation of a major bank’s abandoned building at the
very center of Barcelona some days before the general
strike encouraged many people to participate in the
movement against the neoliberal measures.
At the top of the occupied bank, passers by in
Barcelona could see a huge banner on which was written
in large letters:
“Banks suffocate us. Employers exploit
us. Politicians lie to us. CCOO and UGT trade unions
sell us. Come on!” Several assemblies, activities and
debates took place in that building, which became a
meeting place and a bulwark of the movement towards the
general strike.
The day’s
development of the general strike was different
according to the regions and working sectors involved.
In Catalonia, where the participation was the highest in
Spain, since the early
morning, various pickets were organised in several
cities and towns. A coordinated team of alternative
radiostations, TV's, newspapers and websites were
created to inform people about what was happening in the
streets. The Assembly of Barcelona and the movement that
emerged from the Bank's occupation organised a common
picket at midday in the center of Barcelona in the
context of which several direct actions took place. Some
of these actions (particularly the burning of a police
car) were the excuse for the
illegal eviction of the Bank's occupiers, as well
as for the criminalisation of the autonomous movement
organised outside the mainstream trade unions’
bureaucracy, as we shall see below. At the end of the
day, the mainstream trade unions qualified the strike as
a
“success” talking about a participation of
70%, especially in industrial areas and
factories. However, for the government, the strike had a
very
“uneven” response and a
“moderate effect”!
The days
following the general strike were marked by the media’s
effort to underplay, depoliticize and criminalize the
social mobilisation. Focusing the public's attention to
the destructive direct actions that took place in the
center of Barcelona, and presenting them as irrelevant
to the reasons of the strike or the political, economic
and social situation in general, the local mass media
tried to preclude the significant political debate that
was spreading among the population. The mayor of
Barcelona threatened to close some reputed alternative
news websites unreasonably accusing them of encouraging
violent direct actions. The political and media lynching
was so extreme that after a few weeks more than 100
Catalan university professors released a manifesto
against the criminalisation of social movements.
The movement
which emerged in Barcelona has lowered its intensity
after the strike. The Barcelona Assembly continues to
meet and participation in the district and workers
assemblies is still alive, but the lack of an
antisystemic view and its exclusively reformist
character turns this movement into a purely defensive
movement, or a kind of platform for the coordination of
protest and support: actions or campaigns in favor of
public transportation or public healthcare, in defense
of the workers that suffered reprisals for their
participation in the strike, in support of the people
who are losing their homes, jobs, etc.
The
government’s response to the general strike has been, as
usual, to totally ignore the will of the people. The
mainstream trade unions keep criticising the labor
reforms and calling for demonstrations, but they do not
even want to hear about another general strike!
Neoliberal measures continue to be imposed: recently,
the Spanish president, after a meeting with 37 powerful
employers, presented a set of new measures which include
the effective privatisation of the employment offices,
airports, air control and the elimination of the
financial aid that 700,000 unemployed people with family
burdens receive.
Against what do we fight?
In view
of the above, the crucial question raised
before the strike and, even more so after it,
was: against what do we fight? What causes the
precariousness of our labor conditions and the
oppression of our lives? The determination of “not
bowing our heads” is undoubtedly correct, but it is
necessary that it is matched also by our determination
that we, ourselves, form these questions and reflect
deeply on them to avoid, as far as possible, sapping our
strength in
futile efforts.
It is usual to
accuse politicians (Zapatero and others) or specific
institutions that control the system (Spanish
government, banks, corporations, etc.) for adopting
measures that promote business profit against the
welfare of the majority of citizens, leading to the
labor and social crisis; therefore, it is also common,
as UGT and CCOO trade unions always do, to ask the same
privileged elites for solutions. But as it is being made
increasingly clear, these politicians and institutions
are a cog of the machinery of the international market
economy: neither Zapatero nor Rajoy, nor the so-called
parliamentary Left, have any real power to take
decisions going beyond the dynamics and imperatives of
the neoliberal consensus.[1]
Neoliberalism
grew as a political and ideological movement promoted by
the elites in order to
“justify” and institutionalise
the opening and liberalisation of all markets necessitated by capitalist globalisation, as a result of the massive expansion
of multinational corporations since the 1970s, which by
now control world production and trade. Within this
economic framework countries are forced to increase
their competitiveness, otherwise their products within
the context of open markets, cannot survive the
competition from imported commodities, whereas their
exports decline. In turn, the need of the system to
become more competitive leads to more growth as
capitalist firms have to expand continually to improve
their competitive position. This fact precludes that one
state can stop
—let alone reverse— a process that is
being reproduced around the world: the dismantling of
social controls on the market mechanism and the
resulting cuts in labor rights. This process becomes
necessary within the current institutional framework in
order to secure the free flow of human resources at a
minimum cost and, thus, to achieve the maximum
competitiveness that, as we have already said, is a
structural imperative of the current economic system.
During a brief
interlude in the process of marketisation and as a
result of the intensification of the social struggle it
was possible to introduce certain social controls on the
market mechanism which have led to the rise of the
welfare state (labor protection, full employment
measures, public services, etc.). Such controls were
feasible at the time due to the low degree of
internationalisation of the economy and the fact that
markets were not open but were still socially
controlled —a crucial precondition which allowed these
kinds of “concessions” to society. However, since the
70's of the last century, the internationalisation of
the economy and the need to liberalise all markets fully
so that economic growth could be maximised have imposed
imperatively around the world, with increasing force,
the dismantling and erosion of the policies that
characterised the welfare state. This has led to a new
stage in the marketisation process: neoliberal
modernity. Thus, we can note how the social-democratic
approaches have failed miserably: first, they pursued
partial reforms as gradual steps towards socialism;
then, they settled for welfare and full employment
within capitalism and finally, in recent decades, they
have accepted the gradual reduction of the former and
the total collapse of the latter, becoming an integral
part of the neoliberal consensus.
We
should keep in mind, therefore, that in case we face, as
at present, a tough and arduous struggle to stop the
neoliberal measures that the government intends to
implement, even if this struggle
was able to protect labor and social
rights, this could only provide a slightly slower pace
to the dynamics of the system in which we live, whose
aim is always to increase the marketisation of our
lives, with all the adverse effects that this causes:
unemployment, precariousness, exploitation, alienation
and inequity, apart from its social and ecological
effects which threaten life itself. The meager victories
that can be achieved within the present institutional
framework will be temporary until the next attacks, and
these are becoming every day more forceful and
relentless. Thus, it is necessary to fight against the
very system in which we live, which is the root of the
problem. The way to do it is not protesting just against
its effects, but directly challenging its own
institutions and struggling to replace them
with a new form of social organisation. This does
not mean that it makes no sense to speak out and stand
up when they want to crush us. It means that the way to
do it is by building the alternative that can overcome
the present system. Resisting the current systemic
crisis while accepting the same ways of thinking and
institutions that have created the problems we suffer,
without the explicit goal of overcoming them, is like a
drop in the bucket. It is therefore obvious that either
we replace the system with genuinely democratic
institutions like those proposed by the Inclusive
Democracy project or we will be dragged down to a new Dark Age
which, in an era of high technology will be much darker
than the old one —assuming, of course, that humanity will
survive it!
Beyond reform
Although there
are some anti-capitalist ideas discussed by participants
of the Barcelona Assembly, the main objectives of the
struggle and the proposals made so far would only go in
the direction of promoting social mobilisation to stop
the cuts, and not in the direction of building an
alternative society. Accordingly, the Barcelona Assembly
has not overcome the reformism of the mainstream trade
unions and maintains the same goal: to stop the cuts. In
our view, the form of struggle and the organisational
structure adopted by the Barcelona Assembly is
appropriate. However, we believe that this democratic
organisation should not only be a means but also an end.
It is not just about changing the way of
organizing the fight with respect to the trade unions
against the established system; it is also necessary to
change the aim. It is time to go beyond the level
of protest and demand-raising because, as we have seen,
they can not, by themselves, undermine the systemic root
of the crisis. Clearly, it is time to begin the process
of transition towards a new form of social organisation
based on equality and autonomy at all levels, of which
the Barcelona Assembly could be a significant starting
point. This shift in the orientation of the struggle is
especially important and urgent in the present context,
which is characterised by the accelerating worsening of
the multidimensional crisis (economic, ecological,
social and political).
The general
strike is a good way to show the opposition to the loss
of rights and to the social cuts, but it is necessary to
move on from simple resistance to start building the
institutions of an alternative society. Thus, the
creation of a new political consciousness and new
institutions based on a project of systemic change
towards a genuinely democratic and truly ecological form
of social organisation should be promoted, catalysing
the transitional movement that will lead to it. We think
that the process of catalysing this movement could
involve all those who are aware of the systemic nature
of the present multidimensional crisis and understand
that protesting against its effects is not enough until
we seriously consider and effectively build an
alternative social organisation.
The organisational dynamics that are being set in
motion through the Barcelona Assembly and the district
assemblies can become the model of new democratic
political institutions. Starting from the local level
(district, municipality), we can begin weaving a
confederation of assemblies that grows territorially
forming a new pole of popular power. Small assemblies
(at the local level) can choose revocable delegates with
the function of transmitting their voice and will to the
geographically broader confederal assemblies of
delegates (for example the city's or county's assembly),
in order to
coordinate, manage and implement the decisions taken by
local assemblies (but never take decisions
“in their
name” as it happens in the representative
“democracy”). In this way we can open a new public sphere where
citizens can deliberate and decide with equal voice and
vote on everything which seems appropriate to them (not
just on one issue, as in the case of the current
Barcelona Assembly, which focuses only on social mobilisation against the cuts).
Worker’s
Assemblies that are being established can also become an
integral part of this new emancipatory movement. Just as
the Confederal Citizen’s
Assemblies (based on district/municipal assemblies) can
become the political alternative to the oligarchic system of
representative
“democracy”. Worker’s Assemblies can become the
alternative to hierarchy at the workplace. This should
be accompanied by the parallel gradual shifting of
economic resources (labor, capital, land) away from the
market economy and the introduction of a new demotic
economic[2] sector,
owned and controlled by local assemblies through the
Demotic/Confederal Citizen’s Assemblies. In the case of
Catalonia, there are many projects advocating for
another economy (cooperatives, exchange networks, etc.).
They could be an integral part of this new movement if
they shared its general program of social transformation
and, consequently, they aimed at becoming demotic
projects, explicitly involving themselves with the
democratic movement for systemic change and, therefore,
adopting the Demotic/Confederal Citizen’s Assemblies as
the sovereign institution that expresses the general
interest of the citizenship in the new form of social organisation under construction. To the extent that
the demotic economic sector materialises, problems such
as unemployment, underemployment and alienation in the
workplace would disappear. At the same time, this
demotic economy would also allow us to gradually leave
behind the dynamic of the market/growth economy in which
we are immersed that is leading us directly to social,
economic and ecological disaster, and replace it with
the aim of satisfying human needs in a framework of
harmonious relationship with the environment[3].
Social paradigm
shift
However, the crucial issue raised by the
above is how we move from here to there, i.e. how we
move from the present institutions of representative
“democracy” and the internationalised capitalist market
economy to an Inclusive Democracy.[4] Below, we will summarise some of the main elements of the ID
transitional strategy.
The
creation of a new world order based on an Inclusive
Democracy involves the building of confederations of
local, regional and national inclusive democracies. In
fact, the fight to create confederal IDs in our area,
Southern Europe, could start here and now, given that
many people are already wondering whether the ultimate
cause of the present crisis in Southern Europe is EU/EMU
itself, which has to be replaced by a confederation of
European peoples with similar economic, political and
social problems as a step towards the creation of a
confederal ID.
Starting point in the ID transitional strategy is that
if there is one lesson History taught us, this is that
the basic cause of failure of previous, revolutionary or
reformist, attempts aiming at a systemic change was
exactly the significant unevenness in the level of
consciousness, in other words, the fact that all past
revolutions had taken place in an environment where only
a minority of the population had broken with the
dominant social paradigm. However, for a revolution, to
be truly successful, a rupture with the past is
presupposed, both at the subjective level of
consciousness and at the institutional level. Still,
when a revolution in the past was “from above,” it had a
good chance to achieve its first aim, to abolish state
power and establish its own power, but, exactly because
it was a revolution from above, with its own
hierarchical structures etc., it had no chance to change
the dominant social paradigm but only formally, i.e. at
the level of the official (compulsory) ideology. On the
other hand, although the revolution “from below” has
always been the correct approach to convert people
democratically to the new social paradigm, it suffered
in the past from the fact that the uneven development of
consciousness among the population did not allow
revolutionaries to achieve even their very first aim of
abolishing state power. Therefore, the major problem
with systemic change has always been how it could be
brought about, from below, but by a majority of the
population, so that a democratic abolition of power
structures could become feasible. The ID strategy does
offer a solution to this crucial problem.
Thus,
the main aim of
direct action, as well as of the participation in local
elections, the two main forms of activity suggested by
the ID project, is not just the conquest of power, but
the rupture of the socialisation process and therefore
the creation of a democratic majority “from below,”
which will legitimise the new structures of Inclusive
Democracy. Given this aim, it is obvious that
participation in national elections is a singularly
inappropriate means to this end, since, even if the
movement for an Inclusive Democracy does win a national
election, this will inevitably set in motion a process
of
“revolution from above”. This is because the rupture
in the socialisation process can only be gradual and in
continuous interaction with the phased implementation of
the program for the Inclusive Democracy, which, for the
reasons mentioned above, should always start at the
local level. On the other hand, an attempt to implement
the new project through the conquest of power at the
national level does not offer any opportunity for such
an interaction between theory and practice and for the
required homogenisation of consciousness with respect to
the need for systemic change.
So, the ID strategy involves the building of a mass programmatic
libertarian political movement, like the old socialist
movement, with an unashamedly universalist goal to
change society along genuine democratic lines, beginning
here and now. Therefore, such a movement should
explicitly aim at a systemic change, as well as at a
parallel change in our value systems. This strategy
would entail the gradual involvement of increasing
numbers of people in a new kind of politics and the
parallel shifting of economic resources (labour,
capital, land) away from the market economy. The aim of
such a strategy should be to create changes in the
institutional framework, as well as to value systems,
which, after a period of tension between the new
institutions and the state, would, at some stage,
replace the market economy, representative “democracy,”
and the social paradigm “justifying” them, with an
Inclusive Democracy and a new democratic paradigm
respectively.
This is because, as systemic change requires a rupture
with the past, which extends to both the institutional
and the cultural level, such a rupture is only possible
through the development of a new political organisation
and a new comprehensive political program for systemic
change that will create a clear anti-systemic
consciousness at a massive scale.
However, the creation of a new culture, which has to
become hegemonic before the transition to an Inclusive
Democracy could be effected, is only possible through
the parallel building of new political and economic
institutions at a significant social scale. In other
words,
it is only through
action to build the new institutions that a mass
political movement with a democratic consciousness can
be built. Such a strategy creates the conditions
for the transition, both the “subjective” ones, in terms
of developing a new democratic consciousness and the
“objective” ones, in terms of creating the new
institutions which will form the basis of an Inclusive
Democracy. At the same time, the establishment of these
new institutions will crucially assist here and now the
victims of the concentration of power and particularly,
the victims of neoliberal globalisation in solving the
problems of inequality created by it. The objective,
therefore, of an ID strategy is the creation from below,
of “popular bases of political and economic power,” that
is, the establishment of local inclusive democracies,
which, at a later stage, will confederate in order to
create the conditions for the establishment of a new
confederal Inclusive Democracy. Therefore, a crucial
element of the ID strategy is that the political and
economic institutions of Inclusive Democracy begin to be
established immediately after a significant number of
people in a particular area have formed a base for
“democracy in action” ―something that, most probably,
could only be achieved at the massive social scale
required through winning in local elections under an ID
program.
Contesting local elections does provide
the most effective means to massively publicise a
program for an Inclusive Democracy, as well as the
opportunity to initiate its immediate implementation on
a significant social scale. In other words, contesting
local elections is not just an educational exercise, but
also an expression of the belief that it is only at the
local level that direct and economic democracy can be
founded today, although of course local Inclusive
Democracies have to be confederated to ensure the
transition to a confederal democracy. It is exactly
because the demos
is the fundamental social and economic unit of a future
democratic society that we have to start from the local
level to change society. Therefore, participation in
local elections is an important part of the strategy to
gain power, in order to dismantle it immediately
afterwards, by substituting the decision-taking role of
the assemblies for that of the local authorities, the
day after the election has been won. Furthermore,
contesting local elections gives the chance to start
changing society from below, something that is the only
democratic strategy, as against the statist approaches
that aim to change society from above through the
conquest of state power, and the ‘civil society’
approaches that do not aim at a systemic change at all.
Thus, once the
institutions of Inclusive Democracy begin to be
installed, and people, for the first time in their
lives, start obtaining real power to determine their own
fate, then the gradual erosion of the dominant social
paradigm and of the present institutional framework will
be set in motion. A new popular power base will be
created. Town by town, city by city, region by region
will be taken away from the effective control of the
market economy and statist forms of organisation
(national or international), their political and
economic structures being replaced by the confederations
of democratically run communities. An alternative social
paradigm will become hegemonic and the break in the
socialisation process ―the precondition for a change in
the institution of society― will follow. A dual power in
tension with the statist forms of organisation will be
created which ultimately may or may not lead to
confrontation with the ruling elites depending on the
balance of power that would have developed by then.
Clearly, the greater the appeal of the new institutions
to citizens the smaller the chance that the ruling
elites will resort to violence to restore the power of
the state and the market economy institutions on which
their own power rests.
Conclusion
Today,
therefore, we have immense work to do. Perhaps more than
ever before that quote of Thucydides that says "We
must choose: either to rest or to be free" acquires
its full meaning. We hope that the combative and
autonomous initiative that has been generated by the
Barcelona Assembly transcends the partial claims against
the socioeconomic cuts to trigger the creation of a new
movement that advocates for the overcoming of the
current system, building a form of social organisation
designed to serve the people and controlled by them. In
other words, the creation of an ID movement that will
play the role of a catalyst in assisting people in
organizing demotic assemblies and workers’ assemblies.
Such an assembly movement
initially will necessarily be at a small social
scale, but once the new paradigm becomes hegemonic, the
new institutions, through local elections, could become
the institutions reflecting political, economic and
ecological democracy at the local level first, and then,
through winning more local power, at the regional and
confederal levels on the road to create a new Confederal
Inclusive Democracy.
* The following paper is
based on an article which was published in the first
issue (Fall-Winter) of DEMOS, a four-monthly publication
edited by the Catalan ID Group that was distributed on
29 September during the Barcelona demonstrations.
http://democraciainclusiva.org/txt/vaga.pdf
[1]
The term
“neoliberal consensus” refers to the set of policies that have been
implemented around the world since the mid 1970 by
political parties of all persuasions in power (as a
result of the opening and
“liberalisation”
of markets imposed by neoliberal globalisation),
which implied the huge increase in the power of
those who control the economy through the
drastic reduction of social controls over
markets. The main trends of the neoliberal
consensus are the following: market liberalisation, privatisation of state companies, reduction of the
welfare state into a safety net and a parallel
stimulation of the expansion of the private
sector towards social services (health,
education, pensions, etc.) and the
redistribution of taxes in favor of higher
income groups.
See Takis Fotopoulos, Towards an
Inclusive Democracy: The Crisis of the Growth
Economy and the Need for a New Liberatory
Project (London & NY: Cassell, 1997), ch. 1.
http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/fotopoulos/english/brbooks/brtid/brtid.htm
[2]
“Demotic” is an adjective referring to what belongs to the
demos,” i.e. the basic institution of classical
democracy, a Greek word that means community or
people organized as a general assembly of all
citizens in the community.
[3]
For a
detailed description of the economic functioning
proposed and the transition towards it, see Towards
an Inclusive Democracy, chapters 6 and 7.