With Greek unemployment climbing to 30%, with their factory abandoned by the employers, the workers of Vio.Me., a building materials factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, and who have been unpaid since May 2011, by decision of their general assembly declared their determination not to fall prey to a condition of perpetual unemployment, but instead to struggle to take the factory in their own hands and operate it themselves, demanding legal recognition for their workers’ cooperative.
When factories are closing down one after another, the number of the unemployed in Greece is approaching 2 million and the vast majority of the population is condemned to poverty and misery the demands of the Vio.Me workers is a reasonable response. Some, however, might see this as the beginning of a social revolution in which the workers take over the factories and organise production without the bosses but the more sober assessment is workers, in a crisis situation, are reacting in a pragmatic fashion to try to ensure that they had some source of income to maintain themselves and their families. But it does at least show, to any who might not have already realised it, that workers can organise production without bosses. Organising production without the boss class is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another. Within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. Because of their precarious legal position, the workers cooperatives running a recuperated enterprise are at a competitive disadvantage hence the importance of being recognised legally to access funds. The fact is that there is no way out for workers within the capitalist system. As long as capitalism lasts workers will have to find a source of money one way or another and so will always be in a dependent and precarious position. At most they can only make their situation a little less unbearable.
Nevertheless, the Vio.Me workers from actual experience have learned that capitalism is a class struggle between those who own the means of wealth production and those who don't and that this class struggle is not just over the price and conditions of sale of the commodity workers are selling but ultimately about control over the means of production. Argentinan capitlaists in its economic melt-down of December 2001 abandon their factories and it also happened in Russia in 1917, Spain in 1936, and Hungary in 1956, provide examples of when the capitalist state is temporarily incapable of protecting capitalist property, then the workers more or less spontaneously take over their workplaces and keep production going. Workers are not going to let themselves starve: if the means of production are there, and there's no state to stop them using them, they'll go ahead and use them. Neverthelea as soon as the emplying class recover from the recession and the state regains its power, then then they in a position to confront the workers and re-impose their authority and control. The state upholds legal private property rights. The importance of political power is in fact fully recognised by the Vio. Me workforce. This is why they are calling for the law on property rights to be changed so as to recognise the property rights of the workers cooperatives.
Real victory can only come as a result of a consciously socialist political movement winning control of political power to abolish all capitalist property rights and usher in the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.
When factories are closing down one after another, the number of the unemployed in Greece is approaching 2 million and the vast majority of the population is condemned to poverty and misery the demands of the Vio.Me workers is a reasonable response. Some, however, might see this as the beginning of a social revolution in which the workers take over the factories and organise production without the bosses but the more sober assessment is workers, in a crisis situation, are reacting in a pragmatic fashion to try to ensure that they had some source of income to maintain themselves and their families. But it does at least show, to any who might not have already realised it, that workers can organise production without bosses. Organising production without the boss class is one thing; escaping from the economic laws of the market is another. Within capitalism, it is not just a question of organising production, but also of selling what is produced. Because of their precarious legal position, the workers cooperatives running a recuperated enterprise are at a competitive disadvantage hence the importance of being recognised legally to access funds. The fact is that there is no way out for workers within the capitalist system. As long as capitalism lasts workers will have to find a source of money one way or another and so will always be in a dependent and precarious position. At most they can only make their situation a little less unbearable.
Nevertheless, the Vio.Me workers from actual experience have learned that capitalism is a class struggle between those who own the means of wealth production and those who don't and that this class struggle is not just over the price and conditions of sale of the commodity workers are selling but ultimately about control over the means of production. Argentinan capitlaists in its economic melt-down of December 2001 abandon their factories and it also happened in Russia in 1917, Spain in 1936, and Hungary in 1956, provide examples of when the capitalist state is temporarily incapable of protecting capitalist property, then the workers more or less spontaneously take over their workplaces and keep production going. Workers are not going to let themselves starve: if the means of production are there, and there's no state to stop them using them, they'll go ahead and use them. Neverthelea as soon as the emplying class recover from the recession and the state regains its power, then then they in a position to confront the workers and re-impose their authority and control. The state upholds legal private property rights. The importance of political power is in fact fully recognised by the Vio. Me workforce. This is why they are calling for the law on property rights to be changed so as to recognise the property rights of the workers cooperatives.
Real victory can only come as a result of a consciously socialist political movement winning control of political power to abolish all capitalist property rights and usher in the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.
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