(LE) We can only empower ourselves collectively! - Call for the Anarchist Bloc

 

 

Merz has to go - everything else too!

It is not that we are not told what we are to this state. Those currently in power speak quite openly about how little the welfare state's concessions in labor law, the social system, pensions, health policy or the right to privacy are worth to them. We are lazy, the fat years are over and with it the “part-time lifestyle” in Germany patronized by the rich. Foreigners and the unemployed are scum, and the rest must be made clear that the interests of the German rulers will soon have to be defended with armed force - whether we like it or not. So we are nothing more than a pawn necessary for profits, who must be kept in check and forced to work, consume or die in the ditch. The fact that the Black Rock Chancellor does not hide the fact that he is making politics for the dividends of his former colleagues and bosses should not obscure why these cuts are coming now and why the same politics will also take place with the stomach ache of the “progressive forces”.

In times of good profits, it is easier to accede to our demands for a more dignified life than to have to assert ourselves against our potential power as an integral part of the production process. In times of falling profit rates, scarce resources and sales markets, however, the success of this store must be ensured again by making the poor and working people at home both poorer and making their lives more difficult. In good times, those in power celebrate the right decisions and pocket the profits billions of times over. But when the crisis comes, the state will always shift responsibility and therefore the entire burden onto the workers, as if we were making decisions that influence the economy, participation in the war or the state budget. With our right of co-determination, which is limited to ticking a few boxes every four years, we are not responsible for the emergence of the next crisis. It is precisely the state institutions that keep capitalism alive with their policies that bring about the scarcity, the pressure to grow, the alienation, the unequal distribution and the cold constraints of the market. The financial crisis that occurs every 15 years not only shows the dysfunction of this economic system, but is also used as an excuse to take away our hard-won better living conditions.

This time in the crisis we should not only forfeit our security and real wages, but also our bodies and souls - and all this just to enforce our demands in the world.

Learned helplessness

Former workers' parties like the SPD, social partnership associations like the DGB or pacifist alternatives like the Greens support every step of the attack on our (remaining) freedoms and security. They must betray their tasks as representatives of workers, pacifists and the trade union base because they have placed themselves at the service of the smooth running of the capitalist order and have made themselves and their existence completely dependent on it. Their function has always been to turn a contradiction into a partnership, a potential break with the circumstances into a perpetuation of the unequal compromise - between workers and their exploiters, between cannon fodder and generals, between rulers and ruled. This is currently working completely according to plan if the DGB just nods off this attack on us or, like Fahimi, even explicitly praises it, just because the previously practiced theater between politicians and the unions envisaged a withdrawal of the wildest demands. 
If our largest representative organization is unwilling to do what it is there to do - namely, fight for our side and use our real power as organized workers - there is no other word for it than treason!

This is not a new finding, but rather the same old story that is causing both voter turnout and membership in the social partnership unions to rapidly decline. The apparent hopelessness creates disappointment and frustration, which for many is reflected in racism, heated subversion and over-identification with their own nationalism. So the workers' self-confidence in (their, not their) own strength drowns in powerlessness. In the end, most of the dispossessed no longer develop the will to be able to collectively determine their own fate. 
We have to get out of there!

We are declared enemies of the transfer of our power to representatives, officials or party bigwigs. We welcome low voter turnout and the end of social partnership unions. We won't settle for a piece of the pie that was never particularly big anyway and wasn't accessible to anyone. We want everything!
But the question is: what is the alternative?

The solutions are here (or not so long ago)

If the institutions that emerged from the labor movement of the last few centuries are more committed to social partnership than to our own interests, then we just have to start helping ourselves again. 
We should take inspiration from the collective empowerment of Genoa's dockworkers against the transport of weapons. We should allow ourselves to be carried away by the perseverance of the workers in France, who simply did not want to accept an increase in the retirement age and were prepared to dismantle the city center in yellow vests until the fuel tax disappears. We should also look outside Europe for answers. Colleagues at Samsung in South Korea have secured a 6% pay increase by threatening a large-scale strike. Something like that is possible here too!

Let us revive the operatic tradition of the Italian company grassroots groups as an alternative to the ossified structures of the unions and channel our discontent into wildcat strikes, like at Ford in Cologne in 1973 or at Mercedes in Bremen just this year. Let's develop a vision again in which we - the people producing and executing in the economy - can make all decisions democratically. In this vision, we transform the entire society and empower ourselves collectively. We finally want to be in charge ourselves instead of just being managed from above!

As a first step, join basic unions such as the Free Workers Union (leipzig.fau.org), become a member of the rental union (mietunion-leipzig.de) and discuss current politics and your ideas about it with your employees. Every spark of rebellion can inspire others and create a ripple effect so that we become aware of our collective strength. On occasions like September 25th and 26th, when various opposition factions gather in the streets, it makes sense to present yourself as a known ally in the conflict with the rulers. Demonstrations, especially registered ones of this kind, make little impression on those responsible, but have the potential to become a threat to conditions if there is enough growth. Even if they never reach this potential, we believe it is important to give people who feel the same contradiction as us the chance to find us and engage with our social-revolutionary ideas and practical organizational proposals.

So come with us to the Anarchist Bloc for the Social Revolution and to the upcoming dates of the “The government doesn’t care about you” campaign – so that at some point they will feel that we have the power if we decide to do so!

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