The Centrality of Class I - Exploitation

(This is part of the Introduction to Marxism series. See here.)

The most important reason that I think the contemporary left could do with more input from Marxism is that the contemporary left doesn't have nearly enough to say about class, whereas Marxism makes class central. Upon hearing this kind of statement people often worry, "What do you mean class is central? Are you saying that gender, race, and sexuality - for example - are any less important?" But that's to misunderstand what's meant by the centrality of class: it isn't that class matters more than gender, race, and so on. And it certainly isn't that class exploitation involves more suffering than sexual or racial oppression, as though some computer programmer in Woking had a better claim to be numbered amongst the wretched of the earth than a Saudi woman. No, the Marxist claim is that understanding class has a certain priority with respect to understanding over non-class oppressions; you understand a society in a particularly intimate way if you understand its class relations. This is important, of course, if you want to change society, and so class exploitation ought to be of interest not least if you want to fight sexism, racism, or homophobia.

The reason Marx thinks this was touched upon in the first post of this series, historical materialism: the way we reproduce ourselves as a species, that is, the way we produce the things we need, constrains the way we can organise society. And class quite simply is the general way we organise production socially, the way a society contains different groups who in different ways own or control the means to produce the things we need. From this it ought to be clear that class, for Marx, is not a matter of accent, or of what kind of sauce you put on your chips, or even of how much money you have. The question is simply: do you own the means to produce things for human need (beyond your own domestic needs)?

Before capitalism and in the early days of capitalism the answer to this question might well have required a little thought: perhaps you might have your own small-holding, but also work the local baron's land, or perhaps you might do piece-work for a local industrialist in your cottage. Under developed capitalism, however, things are much simpler: the vast majority of the population do not own factories, companies, sufficient shares or other accumulated wealth to be able to survive without working (or receiving state benefits in countries where these exist). Nor do they own land, or significant amounts of tools or resources. These people, most of us, the proletariat in Marx's language, must sell our capacity to work to others in order to survive. The bourgeoisie, meanwhile, own the means of production and lay claim to the profits made in their factories, farms, call centres, and computing labs.

Here's the rub: those profits, to which the bourgeoisie lays claim, result from the labour of the proletariat. Capitalism in other words is an exploitative system; to be a proletarian is to be exploited. Now, I have no intention of going into the details of Marx's theory of value and exploitation, mainly because this is an introduction, but also because it is laid out clearly in the first volume of Capital and explained well by David Harvey's free on-line course. Basically, though, the idea is that value is produced by human labour and that profits are surplus value, the value produced by labourers minus the value returned to them in the form of wages (which will need to be enough in the long-run to allow the workers to survive) and that required to keep firms ticking over in terms of plant, machinery, and so on (all of this being produced by another group of workers, working for another capitalist).

This has a number of consequences. Three seem to me particularly important for the current left:

Economic theory. Marx's account of exploitation is the cornerstone of his economic theory. A systematic grasp of economics is not a strong point on the left, and that is a failure of ours. Yet we have our own tradition of economic thought, and we should get better acquainted with it. Michael Roberts' blog is a good place to start.

Immiseration. It needn't be the case that workers are poor, and many are clearly not. There are all sorts of reasons for this. The exploitative nature of capitalist work, however, builds a tendency to make workers as poor as is compatible with them still working into the nature of production. The reason for this is quite simple: value that goes to workers as wages does not go to bosses as profit. Marx's theory allows us to link our proper outrage at sweatshops and zero-hours contracts to the functioning of the system.

Conflict. The fact that value that goes as wages can't go as profits and vice versa means that conflict is built into the capitalism system itself. My interests contradict my bosses' interests, and that is built into the way things are. Class struggle is not something dreamed up by hot-heads or preached by demagogues, it happens in every supermarket, workshop, and college every day of the year. Marxism is not about arguing for class war, it is about recognising that class war is already with us. Once we have done that, the next thing to recognise is that the only way to abolish class war is to win it, to do away with capitalism and with class-based society. I'll say more about how Marx thought that was possible in a later post.

There's a lot more that could and should be said about class and exploitation: what about the sizeable number of public sector workers in contemporary capitalist economies, where do they fit in? What about those members of the working class who are unemployed or undocumented? What about work done illegally? As I said above, though, this is supposed to be an introduction. With that in mind, one further comment - I suggested in the first post that Marx was a therapeutic thinker, whose work is best read as attacking illusions in our self-understanding which prevent us from being politically active or effective on behalf of the working class. One particularly pernicious illusion tells us that our employers provide us with work, that they are somehow doing us a favour by employing us, and that we should be grateful to them (politicians often talk of 'job creators'). Marx turns the picture upside down and the right way up, so that we can see clearly what is the case: it is not us who need the bourgeoisie, they need us. We could produce what the species need without people exploiting our labour for profit. The bourgeoisie could not profit without exploiting us.

If Marx by his writing has stopped one person being grateful to her boss, then his work was worthwhile.

Marxism in Outline

(On the Introduction to Marxism series see here)

It is easier to say what Marxism is not than what it is. It isn't a quasi-religious worldview, promising guidance for every aspect of its adherents' lives. On the contrary, to the extent that Marxism makes demands on those who follow it, it does so as an emergency measure, in the hope that its demands will one day be no longer necessary (there will be no Marxist politics in a society without exploitation). Marxists can and do disagree on matters of philosophy, religion, art, and much else besides: nothing recognisably in the spirit of Karl Marx claims to have all the answers. Nor, and this will upset some Marxism's  more enthusiastic proponents, is Marxism a science in anything like the modern English sense. Whilst Marxism advocates attention to empirical detail, in politics for example and economics, the claims of Marxism itself have the character not of empirically testable scientific propositions but rather of philosophical reminders, drawing our attention to aspects of human life in the world which should be obvious, but for the effects of ideology. 

To borrow language from another great and currently unfashionable philosopher, Wittgenstein, Marxism is a therapy, a way of thinking which helps us to get ourselves untangled from the illusions sown in capitalist society. It is not simply a therapy, of course: Marx wants us to get our ideas right in order that we transform the world and abolish the social relations which give rise to illusions in the first place. In fact, we won't even get our ideas right in the first place unless we're engaged in transforming the world. Thought, Marx reminds us in his Theses on Feuerbach, is a practical affair.

As I see it, Marx's philosophical reminders as they lie scattered throughout his work (which, unlike some, I see as a unity) fall mainly within three areas:

An Account of the Human Person: Human beings are social, rational animals, who find fulfillment through collectively working in a creative fashion. On this basis Marx opposes individualistic accounts of human beings and accounts for which we are basically mental or spiritual beings, without sufficient attention to our material nature. Practically, he opposes capitalism which he believes prevents us from fulfilling our natures (a type of what he calls 'alienation').

Historical Materialism: Because of what human beings are, there are significant material constraints on human activity. In particular, human beings need to be able to reproduce themselves as animals as a precondition for cultural, political, and other economic life. I cannot write Wuthering Heights, or even Donald Trump's Twitter account on an empty stomach, and keeping my stomach full typically requires the efforts of dozens of my fellow human beings. On this basis Marx thinks that understanding the ways in which human beings produce goods, and the social relations which characterise that production, are fundamental to both understanding and transforming human societies.

The Critique of Political Economy: Economics cannot explain its own foundations in its own terms, Once we enquire into these we see that the labouring human being, to which our attention is drawn by Marx's account of the human person, is the source of value under capitalism, which is intrinsically exploitative. Marx's account of capitalism shows it to require human alienation for its ongoing existence, which provides an excellent reason to overthrow it. At the same time the account permits a deeper understanding of the economics of capitalism, and in particular of the crisis-prone nature of the system.

I'll say more about these in the weeks that follow.

New Series on Marxism

"Do something useful", is the advice I'd give someone looking to get more involved in politics and wondering what to do. I've been reviewing my own political commitments and, with a relatively small amount of time on my hands, less than brilliant health, and a capacity to be sometimes not terrible at writing, I've decided to take my own advice and start a series on Marxism on this blog.

Why, sceptics will rightly ask, does this constitute doing something useful? The British left needs more blogposts like British pig farms need more visits from David Cameron. Perhaps. But the British left certainly has a problem with ideas and tradition. There has been a resurgence in participation in left wing politics since Jeremy Corbyn's first campaign. There has not, on the whole, been a revival of interest in socialist ideas, still less in the historical thought of our tradition. 

To the extent that the new generation of activists bring political ideas with them, they are the default US-imported identity politics of present day university campuses. Do not misunderstand me being critical of 'identity politics' here: it is of paramount importance that socialists fight oppression on the basis of gender, race, and sexuality. The problem with the kind of individualistic moralistic finger-wagging which increasingly passes for left-wing politics is that it actively damages this fight, both by making it the preserve of a 'woke' elite and by disentangling it from the politics of class.

Marxism, a collection of doctrines whose central claims I am unfashionable enough to believe to be true, offers an alternative, putting class in a central analytic position and looking forward to a politics of the "immense majority" acting in their own interests. As a tradition which has developed over a century and a half of working class struggle it, as embodied in those activists who understand the world in terms of it, serves as - in the old phrase - the memory of the class.

And we need a memory. I think that many of us on the Labour left have been so impressed and surprised by the new intake that we have, with misplaced modesty, thought that we have nothing to offer them. The enthusiastic Corbynite teenager can teach the retired lifelong activist to send tweets; that activist, we seem to believe, has nothing to offer. On the contrary, ideas and experience will prevent us from making mistakes which could prove fatal for our movement in the next few years.

So, a series on Marxism is my attempt to make some contribution to fill this gap. There will, over the coming months, be seven posts on these themes:

1. Marxism in outline

2. The centrality of class - exploitation

3. The centrality of class - history

4. Marxist politics

5. Marxism, gender and race

6. Marxism and the New Left

7. Marxism and the Labour Party

Statement on the Labour left slate for the NEC

This was sent to me and I agree wholeheartedly with it. I'll be voting for the Momentum slate in the interest of left unity, but we need to do much better in future.

We feel that there should be a much more transparent and democratic process engaged in for the selection of the NEC Left Slate in the future. It is no longer sufficient that a handful of Executive members of Left organisations meet as the CLGA and choose who we are told to vote for: the grassroots members of these organisations should have the ability to choose who they want on this slate. Having the Executive members of the CLGA organisations select members to put forward for these positions excludes ordinary members from the process. The current system whereby a small group comprising the CLGA decides the final slate by “consensus” is no longer representative of the grassroots Left.

We are proposing that Momentum lead the democratisation within the Left by putting in place the following system for choosing the next NEC Left Slate:

Anyone who is a member of any one of the CLGA organisations and who is eligible to stand for the Labour Party’s NEC is able to put themselves forward for election. They must submit a brief bio and at least one nomination to indicate support from either a branch (or another local organisation) or the Executive of one of these organisations. To facilitate a fully democratic decision-making, all the CLGA organisations must circulate the details (bios & nominations) of all the candidates to all their members, as it is not simply the ability to vote for these candidates, but the opportunity to have full knowledge in which members are making informed choices.

The selection of the final slate is compiled by allowing each member of all the CLGA organisations to vote for the 9 candidates, using a Single Transferable Voting system. Since individuals may be a member of more than one Left organisation within the CLGA, the ballots are issued to members based on Labour Party membership numbers, so that an individual only gets one vote. The 9 candidates receiving the most votes are deemed to be the “left slate” and will be advertised by all the participating groups as such. This selection process should ideally be run by an independent scrutineer such as the Electoral Reform Society.

Strong and Stable

Theresa May is talking about strong and stable leadership. A lot. Like some kind of dystopian Tory stuck record she is repeating the phrase regardless of whether it makes any sense in a given context. It runs through the Tory campaign like a motorway through a site of natural beauty. In an admirably ecumenical fashion it is the mantra of the vicar's daughter. It sounds like either the world's worst dating site bio or an advertising slogan for toilet paper. Yet again and again, the Prime Minister says it. If Theresa May were asked whether she would prefer tea or coffee, she would respond that she stands for strong and stable leadership, and that to chose either drink would be to risk handing power to the Coalition of Chaos.

Why is she doing this? The image she wants to present is a classically conservative one - of order and unity, bringing the nation together above the noise of political contest. It is a disturbing outlook for sure: taken to extremes, it feeds into the kind of grotesque fascism represented across the Channel by Marine Le Pen. It cannot be denied, or at least it should not be denied, however that these tropes appeal to no small number of people: leadership, unity, stability, strength.

Not everyone for whom this talk is comforting or uplifting has a pair of jackboots on their shoe-rack. May's values appeal to the anxious, to those whose lives lack shape, community, or apparent meaning. They offer a prospect of having a clear place in the world and of belonging to something along with others. In other words, they promise to undo the unsettling effects of capitalism. Right-wing politics in capitalist society finds itself caught in a constant bind: on the one-hand wishing to unleash the market on society in the cause of profit, on the other needing to restore the order also required by profit in response to the disorganising effects of capital's social rampage.

The Left has to understand the roots and the appeal of language like May's in order to respond to it adequately. It would be a mistake of catastrophic proportions, and a betrayal of the victims of the racism 'national unity' invariably brings in its wake, to adopt May's own themes in the fashion of Blue Labour. Even offering 'leadership' seems to me to suggest a presidential politics to which we'd be better placed to propose an alternative: we are not so much about leading as allowing people to take control of their own lives. This said, in order to counter the 'strong and stable' line, something has to be said that speaks to the uncertainty, vulnerability and isolation that breeds it. Corbyn's programme is good in this respect; in the longer run an explicit class politics is the answer. For now, the task is to get out there and offer an alternative remedy to the disease for which May offers toxic snake oil.

The Empty Chair

I do not like presidential style debates. This is because I do not like presidents. In particular, I do not like presidential politics, descending, as it invariably does into a personality contest, focusing on who is the 'strongest leader' and who performs best in front of the cameras. This type of politics, which was drip fed to Britain during the Blair years, takes politics further away from the grassroots and encourages aesthetics at the expense of policy.

I can't bring myself to condemn Theresa May for failing to take part in a leaders' debate, then. But, more importantly, I think that we on the other side ought to think very carefully before making her absence a theme of our campaigning. We should ask ourselves: why is she doing this?

It is not, alas, because she is frightened of Jeremy Corbyn. She no doubt genuinely believes that his policies are barmy and that she would wipe the floor with him. Such is ideology. No, the reason Theresa May won't participate in the debate is that she wants to appear like the natural prime minister, the default option, the incumbent who is not on the same level as the other candidates. This is the resurfacing of the Tories as the natural party of government. Drawing attention to the phenomenon strikes me as not very helpful to Labour.

Much more generally, this election cannot go well for Labour on the basis of the usual channels - televisual challenges and well-handled debates. We can only win on the ground, at community at workplace level, through the engagement of activists. And we can only win by concentrating on politics not personalities.

Well, here we go

It would be an obvious lie to say that the timing of the general election announced today is good for Labour. That said, given that it has happened we need to fight.

And there is a lot to fight for. It has been a long time since such a clear choice has been put before the electorate. The Tories, hot on the heels of crushing attacks on the welfare state (including the barbaric extreme of forcing raped women to detail their attack in order to claim child benefit) and intent on using EU exit as an excuse to curb migration are hoping to take advantage of a poll lead, before economic downturn and internal divisions over Europe become visible. Labour meanwhile has a solid raft of policies which will make life better for millions of people. The recent pledge on free school meals for primary school children is especially welcome.

I'll say more by way of analysis in the coming days. For now, though, every socialist in Britain ought to commit themselves to helping get a Labour government elected. Get in touch with your local Labour Party or Momentum to see how you can do this.

LRC Statement on Syria

From the website here:

Donald Trump’s response to the death of “beautiful babies” caused by the latest chemical gas attack in Syria has been to kill a few more. Reports suggest at least four children were killed in the US missile strike on a Syrian airbase in Idlib province. The British government fell into line calling the US action “appropriate”.

Jeremy Corbyn’s statement about the attacks correctly said that the “horrific chemical attack was a war crime which requires urgent independent UN investigation and those responsible must be held to account. But unilateral military action without legal authorisation or independent verification risks intensifying a multi-sided conflict that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people.”

Meanwhile, US airstrikes in North-Eastern Syria and around Mosul in Iraq are inflicting scores of casualties on a daily basis. Except for one recent occasion when a single coalition airstrike on Mosul killed nearly 300 civilians, this relentless bombardment has scarcely been considered worth reporting by much of the media.

The response of western powers to the suffering of the Syrian people at the hands of the Assad regime, rebel groups, ISIS and other external forces seems mired in hypocrisy. The British government itself granted export licenses to a UK manufacturer less than five years ago to allow to be sent to Syria the ingredients that constitute the chemical weapons most likely to have been used. Trump, having demanded that the previous Administration do nothing to bring down the Assad regime when it was at its weakest, now intervenes when it appears to be winning its bloody civil war. It would not be too cynical to suggest that his policy is simply one of prolonging the Syrian conflict to prevent the emergence of any power in the region that could destabilise US interests.

Trump’s intervention has done nothing to bring peace or a resolution of the conflict to the Syrian people and in practice has increased international tensions with other powers globally. Only negotiations leading to a comprehensive political settlement can resolve the war in Syria – now an urgent priority for all who claim to want to stop the atrocities being perpetrated by many sides in the conflict.

Egg-gate

I resist the description of myself as a Christian Socialist. I am, rather, a socialist who happens to be a Christian, or a Christian who happens to be a socialist. My point is that I don't think there is a particular type of socialism for Christians. There is just socialism, towards which one might well be motivated by Christianity. In any case, I am suspicious that the designation 'Christian' has functioned historically to drive a wedge between Christian Socialism and the ungodly forces of Marxism. Whereas I think we need a good deal more Marx in the mix.

Nevertheless sometimes Christian identity does insert itself into political life. In a case of life imitating art (the art in question being The Day Today) Theresa May broke off last week from a busy schedule of cosying up to torturers and tyrants to bemoan the fact that the National Trust and Cadbury's had dared to advertise an egg hunt without using the word 'Easter'.

That was laughable. Other attempts to hint at anti-Christian discrimination, and to respond to it by reasserting Christian identity, are considerably less so. Britain First has mounted Christian patrols and harassed Muslims with the assertion that Britain is a "Christian country". One suspects this concern for Christianity is denominationally partial; my Catholicism is unlikely to pass muster, still less the faith of a black-majority Pentecostal church.

As with Theresa May's egg crusade, the fascists' claimed championing of a 1st century Jewish political prisoner is short on detail. Is the Jesus of John's gospel, who claims that his kingdom is "not of this world", the inspiration for the idea of Christian Britain? In these days before Easter, are we to reflect on the passion narratives and their portayal of religious and political authority brutally murdering a man who has opposed social barriers and staged a religio-political protest in the Temple? These are are not themes designed to fit into the Conservative Party conference.

In the same way as Christmas, Easter is a problem for political power in Britain. It is a symbolic resource which can be presented wrapped up in nostalgia and fellow-feeling. If kept vague and unthreatening, a certain amount of religiosity around it can bolster the current vogue for backward-looking conservatism - weren't things better when we believed? But the content of it as a religious festival is at best dubiously helpful to the political right. As a Catholic Worker once put it to me, "the Resurrection is an act of civil disobedience. When the state kills you, you're supposed to stay dead".

Now you, readers, may well have no time for any of this. But still, the thought behind the celebrations of the next few days is that the meaning of human history is disclosed by a battered body, that in order to gain life one must lose it. In order to rise again, for this creed, one must die. Marx says something similar about the international proletariat.

R.I.P. Darcus Howe

The nephew of C.L.R. James, who inspired his radical politics, a powerful writer and broadcaster, we have lost a great champion of justice. Here he is facing down Fiona Armstrong's culpable ignorance:


Alongside figures like Tariq Ali, his co-editor on Bandung File, he was one of a generation of organic intellectuals on the left, characterised by a thoughtfulness born out of struggle and rooted in communities. The present moment, characterised as it is by a growth in racism and the fragmentation of organised resistance, would be an apt one for revisiting his life and writings and learning from them.

Anthem for a Lost Cause

The papers, fired up by Tom Watson, have been speculating feverishly about Momentum and plots to take over the Labour Party. Such is its commitment to finding reds under the bed that the Independent dispatched a reporter to the organisation's official conference yesterday. Exciting though the tales of revolutionary schemes might be, the truth is pedestrian: Momentum is no longer a threat to anything worth threatening. Destined to become an organising hub for speaker-rallies and phonebanks it is now indistinguishable at any level beyond superficial culture from the great bulk of Labour Party affiliates.

The process by which this has come about has been, for me at least, upsetting on several levels. The best opportunity for the British left in decades has been squandered. In the course of this, people who worked well together at local group level have become enemies: friendships have been broken, bonds of solidarity challenged. The experience has been uniquely unpleasant.

The failure of Momentum both reflects and feeds into a deeper and altogether more catastrophic defeat, namely that of the Corbyn leadership. Weak, and opposed by the greater number of his own MPs, Corbyn strikes a lonely figure on the political stage, undoubtedly making useful contributions, but unable to be effective or command convincing levels of electoral support. The foremost barrier to his leadership was always going to be the PLP, and the best hope of counteracting that effective grassroots pressure on MPs backed up by the threat of deselection. Now that Momentum has turned decisively away from that path, all that remains are appeals to party 'unity' - the brutal truth is that the right don't want unity, but the majority of the left are in danger of humiliating themselves by tacking right in an attempt to achieve it.

If Corbyn is to last and not to be humiliated electorally, the best hope remains with movements outside of parliament shifting political common-sense some way to the left. Perhaps some of the organisation around opposition to Trump's visit could go some way towards this. In any case, I think it is now time for the left to take stock and make a deliberate attempt to learn from its having lost. As I've said before, the things in which we are most lacking are organisation and ideas. If any good comes out the present situation, it will be a renewed attention to these cornerstones of socialist politics.

The brakes of ideology

In almost any situation the odds are massively against any radical political movement preserving its radicalism. History is more littered with stories of revolutionaries turned bureaucrats than is a Saturday night high street with beer cans and vomit. The reason for this downbeat truth is remarkably simple: those who join radical movements are products of the very society against which they are fighting, and the dominant ideas in that society are anything but radical. It couldn't be otherwise if society is to persist. No ruler ever ruled without ruling the minds of his subjects. We rage against our reduced pay packets, our closed hospitals, the deportation of our neighbour, and in doing so we catch a glimpse of how the world could be different. Nevertheless, the news we consume (and what gets to count as news in the first place), the jobs we do, the way we understand politics, the way our political organisations are structured, the very language we speak - all of these constrain our idea of what is possible and push us back towards the old world.

So it is with Momentum. The interesting question about this organisation is not so much why Jon Lansman and his cronies launched their power-grab; the answer is one part preservation of left labourism and one part ego, although in the case of a man who has built his career and reputation around left labourism these are not neatly separable. More deserving of attention is why a significant number of people within the organisation have gone along with him. Thinking back a year to some of the events I attended during Momentum's infancy, it seems difficult to imagine the participants meekly doing the bidding of a white male political hack tucked up in a London office. Demonstrations bursting at the seams, discussions full of energy, political campaigns whose participants were diverse in a way that the left had previously failed to be: these did not look like the beginnings of an organisation of passive doorstep-fodder. The students, BAME campaigners, single issue activists, and many others who joined Momentum groups were acutely aware of the corrosive effects of hierarchy. Why didn't they fight against it in greater numbers when it began to manifest itself in their own organisation?

It is tempting to reply that the absence of political education or a culture of ideas in Momentum was to blame. But this is not a real answer, it just pushes the question back one stage - why did people put up with that? At the start so many of them would sign up to slogans about transforming the world, rejecting capitalism, and much else besides. Now a good number of them won't even demand democracy in their own organisation. In saying this I'm not blaming them, I'm posing a puzzle.

The question how the instinct to resist can be transformed into a force for change is the question of left-wing politics, the rest is detail. It is the question of political organisation, and has pretty much been ignored within the British Labour left. Famously averse to the continental affectation that is theory, many members of the labour movement in this country would respond to the suggestion that they give some thought to the relationship between ideas and organisation as though they were Nigel Farage being offered a croque monsieur. In Britain socialists prefer to get on with things and campaign, rather then spend endless hours with books and debates. In the present context this is akin to complaining that the advice to stop and look at a map is a distraction from driving at precisely the moment your car plunges over a cliff.

The problem of organisation would be especially pressing because of the situation of many of Momentum's members even if the tragic rupture of the most inspiring and popular left-wing movements for a generation didn't deserve analysis. Quite apart from the general pressure towards the status quo I was talking about above, millennials aligned to the political left are pulled in two directions. Faced on the one hand with material attacks and uncertainty on a scale unseen since the end of the Second World War, they nonetheless have grown up under Blairism with a model of politics as a consumer choice between particular brands. To join a political party or a campaigning group is, on this model, to be a brand evangelist. The thought of remaining a member of a party whilst seriously dissenting from its public face doesn't enter into the picture - hence Corbyn's backtracking on freedom of movement  is likely to lead to a small exodus. Nor does the prospect of serious debate within a group like Momentum make sense, still less the suggestion that Momentum act as a source of pressure on Corbyn. The retreat of trade unionism and of any meaningful profile for left-wing ideas makes things worse. There appears to be no alternative to the unstable oscillation between effusive radicalism and conformist politics that can be seen all too clearly within Momentum.

Precisely because it's difficult to see how things could have gone differently, it is important that 'we' - by which I mean the left opposition to the imposed constitution - continue to work with people who don't share our opposition. In the short-term, it is only through showing in practice that a reflective commitment to democratic organisation is not only compatible with practical politics, but feeds into it, that we are going to win anyone over. I don't mean - please don't misunderstand me - that we should accept the coup de facto: my position is that the coup is illegitimate, as are the institutions it has established, and that we should continue to look to the NC and CAC for leadership. But our comrades in local groups are not Jon Lansman. We cannot allow the unity, the energy, and the potential of the past couple of years to be entirely wasted.

That is for the short-term. In the long-term serious thought is required about political organisation, ideology, and education. This means that the Labour left has to do something it doesn't like: think.

Momentum: Business as usual fights back

Just over a month ago I was posting about Momentum. As befits the organisation's name, a lot has happened in the time between now and then. A quick Google will fill the reader in if necessary, and I have no intention of using up pixels repeating what has been reported across the British left internet ad nauseam. The news in brief is that Jon Lansman has imposed a constitution on the organisation and that many members are not happy.

Over the coming days local groups will have to work out their positions on the coup, and on what to do next. I have my own view, as will be apparent from the way I'm writing, and I think it's important to defeat what I see as a power grab. But there's a caveat: the way we debate and interact within groups in the hours ahead matters as much as the outcome. Momentum, and the Corbyn movement more generally, is easily the most positive thing to come out of the British left for a generation. It cannot be allowed to go to waste. To this end, the necessary disagreements that lie ahead are ones that ought to be conducted in a comradely fashion, preserving the relationships on which practical solidarity depends, and keeping enough unity within local groups to go forward. This is especially the case because many people in Momentum are new to political action. Seasoned faction fighters would do well to bear this in mind.

If how we conduct the dispute is important, so is understanding it. This is a conflict about labourism, that peculiarly British way of doing working class politics, where the politics of the workplace is outsourced to the trade union movement, with the Parliamentary Labour Party keeping charge of the bulk of business. A strict separation of powers governs the labourist settlement, with trade unions straying into the 'political' being met with disapproval. So too, the PLP preserves its distance from the constituency activists who keep the Party ticking over at local level. If, on this model, political power is distant and insensitive to pressure from below, the devotees of this remote deity receive compensation in the form of the culture of labourism. The Labour Party and unions provide activities, friends and comrades, structure, purpose, and the possibility of office.

Labourism can be left-wing, just so long as it sticks to the rules of the game - politics is for parliament (and not for the streets, still less - God forbid - for 'political' strikes), MPs are important and to be treated with reverence, the 'Labour family' over-rides all other political loyalties. For all that he is the best leader Labour has ever had, and for all that his election would be a momentous step forward, Jeremy Corbyn remains squarely within the labourist consensus (by contrast, Tony Benn was set upon not least because he didn't).

The Corbyn movement, especially in the form of local Momentum groups, however, challenged labourism. It challenged it politically, organising and expressing solidarity with extra-parliamentary action, tying strikes into political agendas. Voices began to be raised about the deselection, and even mandatory reselection, of Labour MPs, turning the assumptions about power within the labour movement on their head. Scarcely less importantly, the movement challenged labourism culturally. More diverse culturally, ethnically and in gender and sexuality terms than anything the British left had ever produced it confronted a Labour establishment that in many localities is monocultural, white, and male.

Why am I writing about labourism? Because some people do well out of left labourism, those who get established positions in organisations, jobs with campaigning organisations or MPs, those who have just enjoyed being immersed in its culture and feel comfortable within it.

The Lansman coup is left labourism fighting back. It is because labourism, for all its undoubted achievements, can never deliver socialism that it would be good were the coup to fail.