16) BUILDING BROAD YOUTH STRUGGLES
Comment by Johan Boyden, General Secretary of the Young Communist League
The other day, I was talking with a passionate youth activist about Walmart, which first invaded Canada with the 1994 purchase of the Woolco chain, closing all non‑union stores. Since then, Walmart has been locked in a hard battle with the labour movement. There are now over 200 Walmart discount stores and 124 "Supercenters."
In many cases, not only does the labour movement try to organize Walmarts, but also to block construction of new stores, working with coalitions of local activists, community groups and small business owners. For a time, these campaigns were a flashpoint issue in the youth and student movement. After all, as a moral representative of monopoly capitalism, Walmart is a weak link.
But in these campaigns, could there be a danger for labour and working‑class people?
Sooner or later, the point is made that shopping at Walmart is not such a good thing. Youth and students, often brave but with limited experience, can be sucked into the idea that Walmart shoppers are ignorant but complicit schmucks.
Never mind that the cost of living is going up while wages stagnate. The anti‑working class idea slips in that Walmart shoppers are also the problem. Why don't they just buy local!
On the other hand, how often have these small business owners advocated for working class issues like raising the minimum wage? When the Postal Workers' negotiations broke down over pensions, wages and benefits, the Canadian Association of Small Business wrote an open letter to Canada Post urging the crown corporation to stand firm in their reactionary bargaining positions.
And what about rightward thinking social democrats in such coalitions, who invariably try to bring the unity of the movement down to the bottom line demands, at the expense of working people?
So the call for caution when working people fight with other groups, strata or classes in society, like small business, is not unjustified. Maybe truly progressive youth activists should restrict or focus our alliance work to just trade unions?
It might seem a logical application of Marxist analysis to identify the working class forces within a movement, and propose that they be pitted against the non‑working class elements. The mistake, however, often made honestly and with good intentions, is to confuse the class with the movement.
Marxists define a person's class according to the individual's relationship to the means of production: do they own the tools, equipment, machinery, natural resources, etc. used in making goods and services?
The working class majority do not own any means of production and must work for a living. Those who own the economy, and can survive without working themselves, are the capitalists. But these two main classes are not the only ones ‑ there are also intellectuals, professionals, small business owners, farmers, etc.
Today, it is difficult to find a people's struggle, other than the labour movement, which is not in some way a class mix. As big business dominates all aspects of social life, and attacks even basic democratic rights, most struggles are "cross‑class" ‑ the peace movement, the student movement, or the women's movement.
A movement has a specific grievance and goal. Because of its diverse identity (in terms of age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, etc.) the working class embraces all progressive movements. The interest of the working class ultimately includes its liberation from and the defeat of capitalism by socialism.
Moreover, the working class learns from such alliances. Few progressive movements can truly win a profound victory over capital without socialism ‑ even if the movement itself does not advocate for socialism. Rather this is the role of voices like the communists, who put forward an immediate agenda for unity and struggle ‑ to help overcome organizational shortfalls, to build unity by convincing people to set aside minor differences and just sweat the big stuff, to help create the political will for action, and to side with the working people.
In practice, the sectarian route ‑ extending the class war into the people's movements ‑ would be disastrous. It would undermine the fighting unity of these forces, orienting the struggle inward instead of against the main enemy.
Campaigns like the Young Communist League's "Charter of Youth Rights" branch out in the opposite direction, seeking the kind of broad, powerful unity that is needed to defeat the Harper government and win a new, progressive direction for Canada.
(The above article is from the September 1-15, 2011, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)