Frequently Asked Questions
In order to transform society, to ensure that the country is run by the great mass of people, rather than by a small elite, we believe we need to start building the power of our class (the working class, or workers) right now. Power is about organisation, confidence and education, the more organised any group of people are the more effective they will be at asserting their demands and attaining their goals. As individuals we have very little power, but when we band together in common organisations our power is greatly increased. Given this, our mission seems clear, workers must be organised, and their experience of organisation must be a good one. We need unions that are genuinely member controlled, and which aren't afraid to utilise militant tactics to achieve victories. In our communities we need to organise as residents into similar bodies, collective, democratic and militant.
When we talk about class we are referring to the belief that society is split into different groups, with different interests. "Class", that is a group of people in the same economic position, tends to cut across artificial boundaries such as race, gender etc. as fundamentally it is in the interest of all workers (the working class) to have more of a say in the way that society is run. Fighting against the interests of the workers are the bosses and the rulers who act as their representatives (the ruling class). It is quite clearly in the interests of this group of people to keep wages low (so as to leave larger quantities of money as their own profit) and to ensure that all those opposed to their agenda are not permitted a say in how society is run.
L&S exists to increase the effectiveness of our members in carrying out our strategies of workplace and community organising. If being a member of L&S does not benefit our members in pursuit of these tasks then our organisation has failed. L&S provides its members with:
- More clout, through collective discipline and united action across the country
- Space to debate strategy and tactics with like minded people
- Educational workshops to further our understanding of the tasks before us
- International links with other organisations across Europe striving towards similar goals
Thre are no 'in house' publications from L&S, no paper and no journal of ideas. We do not see ourselves as a propaganda group, and there are already hundreds of those. Our website carries our policy, our activity reports and some commentary from us, which should give readers a clear idea of what the group is about. We belive it is better to have decent media outlets for the whole of the class struggle movement than to have a private one - and to this end we are contributing to Freedom amongst other projects.
Yes. If we meet or are contacted by someone we think will benefit from L&S membership we will ask them to join. No one can join without having met other L&S members and passing a vote of the membership. Membership cost 1% of your income after tax, and there is also a 'Supporter' status category for people that cannot fully commit but want to help out. L&S is not a group that pushes for recruitment above all else though: we only want people that want us. We are not going to sign up people to be inactive paper members. When we meet people who disagree with us on too many issues to be a member, but are or would be good activists in our joint campaigns, we will point them there.
L&S has no position on whether we think people should vote or not. Our politics clearly lay out our belief that the way to devolve power from the government into the hands of normal people is not through elections. We want to build our own organisations and institutions that run on genuine direct democracy, then use these to either bypass or influence the state until they are powerful enough to replace it. If in the meantime people want to vote, it is entirely up to them, it won’t make a great deal of difference either way.
No. L&S believes that all kinds of trade unions are appropriate tools for fighting the class struggle in different situations. We want to see a growth of Syndicalist unions that are for gaining workers control, not just better wages. This does not mean that we spend our time slagging off TUC unions for being TUC unions – where there is a mainstream union in our workplace, L&S members are active in it. We believe in being in both mainstream unions and radical unions or networks.
We do not see ourselves as the leadership of anything. However we believe that there are people who are good at organising, and inspiring people, in drawing up strategies that can win struggles, and in managing projects. Some people may have all these skills, some a combination, and some won't have any - which, due to a lack of confidence, they are likely to keep to themselves. Confidence can be built with training, experience and opportunity. We believe that a strong and sustainable working class movement needs the maximum number of leaders possible, and that they should be accountable, representative, and recallable - that is, as soon as they fail to carry out the tasks they have been allocated they can be replaced. As well as ensuring everyone who wants to gets a turn, it will help to prevent people burning out, and taking too much work on for themselves.
L&S believes in a democratic society run by the people, with power concentrated locally, in our communities and workplaces. To some this may be "Anarchism", to others "Socialism" or simply "Democracy". We don't attach any particular political label to ourselves, and you certainly aren't required to apply any of these labels to yourself to join L&S, you just have to agree with our politics as explained in our constitution and position papers. Internationally we find close allies in some tendencies of anarchism, but this does not mean that we are not open to alliances with others who describe themselves differently.