Toward the New Commons:
Working Class Strategies and the Zapatistas
by Monty Neill, with George Caffentzis
and Johnny Machete
In July-August 1996, several members
of Midnight Notes traveled to the selva
of Chiapas, Mexico to participate in the First Intercontinental Encuentro
against Neoliberalism and for Humanity, called by the Zapatista Army of
National Liberation (EZLN). For us, it was a moment of great political rejuvenation
(see Neill, "Encounters," this volume). It could be we
are merely desperate in this long capitalist drought, thirsty for some sense
of anti-capitalist life, seeing in the Zapatistas an oasis from which we
can drink and then travel on, renewed in hope -- but misled in direction
and analysis.
We think not. Rather, we think we have found in the mountains of southeastern
Mexico, in the practice and ideas of the EZLN, some important things to
learn from: hope and energy yes, but also a break from a history of working
class struggles that had reached a dead end, and some initiatives and practices
from which we can learn to rethink working class struggle at the planetary
level. This piece is an effort to begin that thinking, knowing we share
with others in the effort and that this piece is only a small start.(1)
However, wrong and incomplete this piece may be, however, we do insist on
a few basic points:
1) The critical and essential criterion must be whether a struggle
moves the world's working people further against capitalism and toward communism
(a discussion to which we will return below).
2) Inevitably, we use our theoretical and experiential knowledge
to try to understand what is before us, but we must recognize that so far
this has been insufficient to the goal of ending capitalism.
3) We must, therefore, with humility, recognize that we may not now
always be able to recognize or understand just how a particular struggle
is moving, and so must approach it with a combination of critical acumen
and openness toward understanding new possibilities.
I. Introduction: The Emergence of the Zapatistas
III. Reflections on the Zapatistas' Strategy
IV. Localism, Homogeneity, and Networks
V. Class Composition and Developing a New Working Class Strategy