Table Of Content__ .—i
A magazine of
libertarian socialism
ii Issue 7
75p
Great Art of our flux
Time
A Magazine of Libertarian Socialism
Issue 7
Number 70:
July 1994
2|-_ L I '
J-' _II ,
Contents
,. I
_£
1’
Don’t Panic - We’re Getting Back to Basics 4
We try to provide a context to the latest
ideological barrage
Looking Backwards, Thinking Forwards 7
1|
II
Ray Challinor recalls his experience of
post—war activism
The FLUX Interview - Michael Oliver 8
A discussion with the activist and
‘,5 ti Professor of Disability Studies at
University of Greenwich
Rethinking the Socialist Project 13
Terry Liddle on a new emphasis after
the Cold War
\-
Correspondence
We had none - what can we do ?
u
Conference Reports 14
Three very different conferences are
put in the limelight:
Bristol Marxist Forum
National Bisexual Conference
Welsh Community Resistance
""'-_""_""'_'i'I*-IlI.lIl~I1$IIfl||Inn-1 llpjqgi
L eiif.‘-r~ '¢5>£r1.,s-;:; Reviews 17
The McDonaldization of Society
Carry on Recruiting
i-—-I~iIi --
itorial
‘ .-
FLUX publishing deadlines are elastic to say the least. But here we are again throwing some ideas on the
table; some more boldly than others.
In this issue Michael Oliver talks about the disabilities movement. This is made up of people who, until
recently, have been seen as the ultimate welfare case: objects of professional intervention and charitable
condescension. Interesting for its own sake, Oliver’ s description of the disability movement illustrates the
bigger problem of socialist organisation and change. This is a movement of people, left voiceless and
powerless by the ideological bent and structures of the system, struggling to find their own voice and
demanding the space to determine their own agenda. As Michael Oliver describes it, the road to liberation
is paved with hope and anger. It is also generously endowed with the pitfalls of co-option and careerisrn.
There are plenty of reformist signposts set up to lure a potentially subversive movement into quieter, less
challenging, streets.
Our challenge today is to help recreate a movement which can take account of these pitfalls and steer clear
of these signposts to nowhere. The collapse of state managerialism - be it social-democratic or Stalinist -
has cleared away some of the confusion. Who remembers the lucrative career structures of radical local
’democracy’ or the call to defend the degenerate, deformed or otherwise flawed ’workers ’ state’ ‘I? There
are signs that revolutionaries are finding a way back to an authentic revolutionary politics - where socialism
means not the ‘enabling’ of state management but the autonomous struggle and power of the working class.
We would suggest that this is the significance of the Bristol Marxist Forum conferences, the first of which
is reported on in this issue.
For his part, Terry Liddle asks that we acknowledge struggles and issues that the left has traditionally
disparaged as peripheral or (dare we even say it) petit-bourgeoisie. This is not a new idea, but it certainly
needs restating. Re-making working class politics is not a project demanding uniformity.
Of course, there will always be some sectarians who are blind to the value of anything outside the
revolutionary processes of the "officia1" Labour movement. Here we can only say 1) socialism is always
unofficial and 2) it's not for us to legislate where resistance to the system breaks out. The struggle is a
diverse one.
So, we welcome the tree sitting, the M11 road bloc, the squatting against homelessness, the rail strike, as
signs of subversive life, potential autonomy and struggle. The role of revolutionaries here is what it has
always been: to identify instances of resistance, to (critically) record, support and publicise them and to
(critically) participate in the spreading of autonomous, grassroots or rank and file struggles.
Of course, the job isn’t an easy one. Over the last fifteen years the government has introduced legislation
controlling both the right to strike and to use public space. Taking advantage of the dcmoralisation (and the
admittedly superficial increased affluence for some) of the working class in the 80’s, the government has
brought back the Combination Acts and Gagging Acts with a vengeance.
I"
But they too are struggling (as in their own way are their loyal opposition). This is a government unable
to find a coherent way out of the crisis or to off-load responsibility for the crisis onto ’enemies within’ with
any degree of credibility. All they’ve offered is the anodyne call ’Back To Basics’.
C A t The FLUX Collective
July 1994
Page 3
I...
By the beginning of the nineties, the commentators explained the failure of the labour bureaucracy: on the one
style of political leadership epitomised ’Back to Basics’ as symptomatic of a hand, the institution of a welfare state;
by the iron rule of Margaret Thatcher government in power too long, out of on the other hand, a supposedly willing
workforce, supplemented by an
was becoming a liability. Her defeat at touch with ordinary people. This,
the hands of anti-=poll tax campaigners however, is no more than a fatuous imrnigation policy which attracted
black people from the Commonwealth
(the Trafalgar Square riot was beamed repetition of the Labour Party’s 1992
around the world) was compounded by election slogan, "It’s our turn"! There into the low paid strata.
a disastrous split over European are more fundamental issues at stake
This economic set-up is commonly
integration. Her successor, John Major, here.
was chosen to install leadership by described as Keynesianism. But far
stealth. A veneer of bland, consensual From Keynesianism. . . from being the socio-economic
politics (though such a description only Solution, it was just a sticking plaster
shows how the political language has First, a sketchy bit of history. In which began to fray as soon as it was
applied. The economic contract was
moved rightwards), to consolidate and Britain, the post-war ’settlement’ was a
continue the Thatcher legacy: that is, trade-off between the needs of capital unsustainable - capitalism’s need to
an economic policy defined by to restructure following the Great increase profit could not indefinitely be
satiated by exploiting new markets, and
monetarism; O and a social policy of Depression of the l930’s, and the
soon pay rises became more closely
privatisation and the dismantling of the demands of the working class for
welfare state. It was hoped that John adequate social welfare - from a living tied to productivity deals. This exposed
the festering class discontent on the
Major’s diplomacy would heal the rifts wage to the NHS. s
without backtracking on the overall shop floor, which during the 1970’s
vision. A fragile social contract, negotiated by could not be policed by the trade union
the state, emerged between capital and and Labour Party bureaucracies.
So what’s gone wrong?
Today, the government . . .to Monetarisrn
seems always at the precipice
At the same time the shift to
of completely losing control —- O
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a service sector economy and
both of its own vision and of
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its politically cynical 1.1;‘. ‘iii. IF“ 7 H H S technological restructuring
all it is
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electorate. The government .. . U . ,.,
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has visibly panicked at the _‘ permanent mass
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spectre of amoral joy-riders, n urmmployment as a way of
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ram-raiders and child Fi-:|l"""‘x \* " suppressing wage demands.
murderers. ’Black so ~ ¢- Although this was successful
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Wednesday’ perhaps started R in severely restricting union
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the rot, but when at the power, the deficit was
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October 1993 Tory Party spiralling costs to sustain the
Conference, ’Back to Basics’ welfare state.
was launched, it was seen as
an ideological expedient, to The major role of the state,
rally the grassroots activists especially since the
and invent a plausible introduction of monetarisrn
scapegoat for government recast economic intervention
policy. to the ever-multiplying
i- I' _ I‘ H I .51 i 1 quangos, is today the
Many left/liberal management of this welfare
Page 4
l
. system. This is not a neutral task, of health service, for example, the t ~J‘*?""
course, since the function of the state privatisation |- of shosp‘-1-i-tals into NHS
within capitalism is to reproduce Trusts was preceded by the hiring of
(culturally as well as physically) a management teams who would ensure
compliant workforce. W However, that trust status was pushed locally.
politicians and bureaucrats do not wield Once this was accomplished they were 1| " "
this power mechanistically - they gain able to subject hospitals to ‘crisis
social and material value from it. It is management’ - in which procedures are
therefore not surprising that they want ‘rationalised’ to the s point where
to keep hold of it. A someone or something breaks down.
The closure ofhospital wards illustrates
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In practice privatisation is the opposite
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O of ’rolling back the state’. Privatisation
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actually entails unprecedented s 6 4* . :f:...
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centralisation and direct state control of A c Q,
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local services. At the same time, the ""‘ A " ""' ‘S -
ramifications for ordinary people are
Individualism A
now beginning to hit hard.
Take housing as an example. One of The second, related tendency coming
the planks of monetarism has been the home to roost for the government, is
championing of the right-to-buy the narrow, selfish strain of
individualism they have promoted so
scheme. Working class people became
property owners, and the post-war keenly. The battle for a Thatcherite
obligation to provide social housing for anti—society of pure self-interest could
those who could not afford to buy was only be fully won by totally isolating
weakened. Although a popular policy at everyone with a common interest, but
the time, only now can people see what the state has had some notable
Privatisation they lost when they bought their council victories, sometimes aided by the left.
houses. They lost the security of From the Miners’ Strike to the Battle of
For example, privatisation has been straightforward rent or housing benefit, the Beanfield, the eighties has
champiomd as handing back the compared to unstable mortgage rates. witnessed a string of defeats for
’wealth of the nation’ (imperialistically They lost the support of repairs and working class politics, whether
defined) to ordinary people. But this maintenance. faced with enormous bills expressed via the union or community
has failed visibly. First, because for roof repairs, damp-proofing and so organisation. This has led to some
creative formations of new opposition,
although the number of shares owned on. They lost mobility, lumbcred with
by the public has increased, the houses they cannot sell unless they are such as the anti-poll tax movement, but
proportion of shares they own has prepared to take on the debt of negative generally speaking a culture of
decreased. (According to ’Social equity. collectivism has been eroded in the
wake of people asserting worth through
Trends’ 22 & 23, the ownership of
shares by individuals was over 50 % the This is not to romanticise the quality of the exercise of individual power.
total number of shares in 1963; in 1992 council housing. It is just to point out
it has dropped to less than 20 % .) With the consequences of the government’s It is at the sharp end of government
the deregulation of share markets, it is transfer of housing from a social policies, in the alienated housing estates
only the rich who can afford to take obligation, fought for by the working and urban ghettos, that this nightmarish
flipside to unfettered money—making
sufficient risks to play the futurities. class , to a private enterprise. The
Second, because‘ far from giving removal of safety nets has left even the and consumption is at its starkest. Some
ordinary people direct control over middle classes of the Home Counties pleasure can be had in recent figures of
state-owned services, privatisation has struggling with debt. Economic 1.1 million people getting caught
‘ merely promoted the inexorable rise of liberalisation has led to personal shoplifting during 1993 (how many
quangoes controlled by government financial insecurity, which only the rich times did we get away with it?). But
placepeople. are safe from. many other manifestations of this
individualism are far more anti-social,
and only perpetuate fear and alienation
Privatisation has direct consequences
for the welfare state. The state wants to rather than challenge it.
offload day-to-day responsibility for the
running of these services (with all the
political costs involved), and simply to
control the funding. So within the
Page 5
Back to Basics Political activity, for many people, is
. just a career, not an attempt to
I-
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John Majoi-*5 much-maligned ' bzpnsmgymmgwmluyw
engender a different society. And in
'= ~ ~ .>sHF- on -n-IE Ec.c1voMY!!!
catchphrase, Back To Baslcs , éggwi M; figs Lsfévflfiio is __ , many cases their perception is correct,
emer ed to wrdes read Tor 5R1? -
8 P Y L;_x_P as socialists take the more prosperous
WHOLE NEW
ABA!-l"5*"“5
enthusiasm. It was designed to provide path of social democracy. The left’s
more legitimacy to the ideology of retreat from the street-level of ordinary
welfare cutbacks, and to demand working class life is as much to blame
adherence to law and order amd—' Z as anything.
reactionary morals. '...»-
Perhaps, then, it is time for socialists to
Many critics have sneeringly dismissed get ’Back To Basics’. Not in a
this as a crude diversion from more ' Q nostalgic, chauvinistic recounting of
fundamental crises afflicting the ‘how it used to be’ . We need to reclaim
government. But this sort of ideological our history, to show where and when
crusading is not dreamt up in a back ’Back To Basics’ aims to restore the these strategies have occurred. This
room by scheming politicians. On the state’s legitimacy, but it fails may help us recognise where they are
contrary, it expresses-s the anxieties of a spectacularly. And it fails because it happening today. For despite the mood
government losing confidence in its expresses the basic contradiction of of pessimism, ordinary people are
own ability to control the course of state monetarism: the desire to combine resisting, individually and collectively,
events (or perhaps realising that it free market liberalisation with a highly in diverse and creative ways. As yet we
never really did anyway). For in regulated social order (designed to have not grasped how these struggles
abstract terms, four crises are deliver the working class to capital). work in a fragmented society, so we
beginning to clamour for attention. The language of social democracy are not making the links between them.
(’social contract’, ’realism’, ’give and We should not be trying to squash
Four Crises for the State r take’) is not appropriate here. The everything into a monolithic struggle.
working class have no stake in such a Instead, we should welcome the
First, there is a crisis of state system. They see, correctly, a double diversity of opposition, recognising the
capitalism, restructuring from standard: the free market for those who potential it has of disrupting state
Keynesianism to monetarism. Second, can afford it, and social regulation for monetarism. it
there is a crisis of welfarism, as the those who can’t. Unfettered
cost of the social wage, still being individualism is the preserve of the We also need to reaffirm the positive
defended by sections of the working capitalist class alone. values of collective action. Not only is
class, spirals out of control. Third, this necessary for a socialist revolution;
there is a crisis of the state’s role as Lcft Retreat only by acting collectively can we
manager of the balance between the create a climate of sympathy,
demands of profit and welfare. And as But the problem for the left is that cooperation and sharing which
the state abandons welfarism, it brings whilst we can record the instances of combined enable effective struggle
on the fourth crisis, of its legitimacy rebellion, it is difficult to generalise against capitalism and the state.
amongst a population which it has them into a socialist vision of a
abandoned. collective struggle to achieve the good flux
things in life.
b c e t f
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Page 6
L @ i c It T F i
"*1. '2.-H ,1’ "
fie’;
I became a revolutionary socialist in 1945 were beginning to disintegrate. You have
- -""'Iui|-If
when I joined the ILP. Conditions then only to look at the Labour Party today, with
were very different. Widespread anger at 250,000 individual members at the most
the Old Order pervaded society. No B-compared to 1,500,000 at its peak, to see
$5- .
workers wanted to return to the the decline in commitment to reformist
5:-3*‘?
unemployment and squalor of the 1930s. politics. Even those who" still back -mi
Labourisrn believe that a Smith
The Brave New World promised by administration would, at best, make
established politicians looked, to marginal changes.
Inn-1
-ii"
revolutionaries like myself, as if it would
u.
remain a mirage. The scenario , as we The reason for this is not that Smith & Co. ‘M.
‘ii; "*""1511,
envisaged it, was a repeat ofwhat happened are less talented than their predecessors.
{tot 4’ -
after the First World War. Homes fit for Rather it is that, as international capitalist ""t.i.. a
H ,-15.?
heroes would not materialise; dole queues competition intensifies still further, no .-11!
and wage cuts would. But this time there resources “exist to finance _ further
would be a vital difference. Not prepared to improvements. The state coffers are bare. how working people created their own
be hoodwinked on a second occasion, Consequently, today we have reformism, organisations and fought to improve their
discontent would reach explosive albeit a dwindling political force, without position. I have examined how the
proportions. The destruction of capitalism reforms . capitalists sought to meet this fresh
was at hand. challenge. It involved the imposition of
The second roadblock, of course, was factory discipline, the creation of a police
Our forecasts proved wrong. Instead of a Stalinism. In 1950, the Communist Party force, the mass building ofprisons --A and the
slump, a prolonged boom occurred. The had two MPs and at the general election buying off of many workers’ leaders. The
death agony of capitalism - forecast by fought 100 seats. When Harry Pollitt lost in life of 'W.P. Roberts, a great fighter agnst
Trotsky - failed to arrive. Instead, bolstered the Rhondda, he consoled his supporters. injustice who became known as "the
by unprecedented expenditure on arms, He told that 600 million Chinese had just People's Attorney ", provided a peg, a
consumer demand expanded and with profit joined the communist camp, which stretched human interest story, around which the
levels rose. An ever-rising GNP created the in monolithic unity from the Baltic to the history has been written.
environment where a Labour government Pacific Ocean. The Soviet bloc, moreover,
could bring in reforms, a surprisingly was, he claimed, making much faster If, as I believe, in the future the British
impressive number of improvements which, economic progress than the capitalist ruling class relies more and more on the
though keeping within the parameters of the countries. As Khrushchev was to say a few stick, not the carrot, then the lessons to be
existing system, workers nevertheless found years later, the USSR would outstrip the learnt from W.P Roberts‘ experiences
most welcome. American standard of living by 19-80. t become more and more relevant. He
exposed the way the authorities used agent
- .-
The Attlee government abolished While the twin obstacles of Labourism and provocateurs , bribed informers and saw to
unemployment. At the labour exchange, Stalinisrn have declined, so at the same time it that pliant judges handled crucial legal
more job vacancies existed than there were has the present economic system they cases. He also understood his strongest
people to fill them. It also introduced the protected. What this inevitably means is in argument came not in the courtroom but by
welfare state, giving security, as of right - the future we are going to see the re- speaking through the window. Exposing
not means tested - from the cradle to the emergence ofmass disconteni, New social injustice and arousing anger in the masses,
grave. A completely free and forces, withfresh energy and new means of he often won battles against both the bosses
comprehensive National Health Service struggle, will enter the arena. As Michael and the state.
began. Private capital no longer controlled Bakunin once pointed out,-ahuman beings are
20% of the economy. distinguished from all other animals by the Currently, I am researching the Second
ability to revolt. Exploitation and World War. Besides the murky deeds that
These reformist triumphs almost eliminated oppression can, I am sure, be vanquished. the ruling class would rather not come to
revolutionary organisations. workers forgot light, I have unearthed many examples of
-I
| ' ' 1
all thoughts of manning the barricades and In my old age, my personal contribution to heroism by our poliu'cal_ forefathers.
fighting for socialism. Given the the fight has altered. Replacing the demo Naturally, respectable historians would
continuation of the existing system, they and picketline, I have turned my attention to rather these remain buried. But I am
could always see an ever-improving future studying the past. Unless we know the determined it will be otherwise.
‘.5.-.
in front of them. errors of previous generations, we always l- _ l~.- '
remain in danger of repeating them. For Remember capitalism doe. sJ. I not only ro_b- us
Only a handful. of us, isolated and impotent, this reason, I have written a number of of our labour-power and the means to
remained loyal to our principles. When, in books. The Origins of British Bolshevism control our own lives, it also robs us ofour
October I950, I attended the inaugural strives to describe the deeds and exploits of past. To know? of tl1te*-Y4-Tmagnificent
meeting of the Socialist Review Group, revolutionaries in the early part of the 20th achievements ofthe past wouidirlcrease our
forerunner of the present-day SWP, the century. A Radical Lawyer in Victorian. self-confidence and our determination to
national membership was a mere 34. England is meant to cover the same ground equal or even,,exceed them ourselves.
as Edward Thompson's classic work, The
Raymond Challinor v
But times were a-changng. The two Making of the English Working _Cl_as.s, but
massive boulders that prevented progress from a different angle. He sought to analyze
Page 57
r
Michael Oliver is a socialist who has been active in disabled
politics for many years. He is the author of The Politics of
Disablement, which FLUX reviewed in Issue 5.
ln this interview with Carolyne Willow, he discusses the
relationship of disabled people with the welfare state, and
the possibilities for radicalism in the future. .
Carolyne - Is capitalism to blame for the oppression of given up easily and the latest reforms don’t actually do that.
disabled people. Take Mr Major’s latest citizenship initiative -- disability
doesn’t merit a mention, I think there’s one footnote in the
whole of the Citizen’s Charter. If you"re an able-bodied
Milte - Capitalism has produced disability in a particular form
which is essentially an isolated, individualised, medicalised passenger whose train from Huntingdon is late, you can sue
condition. Other social foundations have produced disability BR. If you are a disabled person who cannot get on the
bloody train in the first place you have no kind of citizenship
in other ways - some may have been more oppressive, others
entitlements.
less oppressive, some may have actually been liberating. But
I think central to my argument is that capitalism, because of
Carolyne - Have the Community Care reforms unleashed
the change in the mode of production, because of the
any power from the medical profession and social
transition to waged labour, has produced disability in a
particular way. It has produced individual workers and as a workers? .
consequence has had a profound effect on disabled people
because it shook disabled people out of the sphere of labour Mike - Community Care is totally and utterly irrelevant to the
market and they were therefore no longer able to produce the lives of disabled people. The reality is that it is still able-
bodies professionals who decide where the money goes and
goods to sustain their own existence. As a consequence of that
the state had to do something about it and it did that by what services disabled people get. Disabled people are still the
developing an increasingly sophisticated set of segregative passive recipients of services of what other people think they
practices you know from the workhouse to the asylum to the ought to have. People who know what services they want still
colony to the village to the hospital to the residential home do not have the means of control to acquire these services.
and that goes on, that kind of differentiation and specialisation
with increasing sets of professionals spawned to look after Carolyne - What impact has 15 years of retrenchment in
them. Indeed the care managers are the end of the line - you social welfare had on the lives of disabled people?
know we’ll keep disabled people segregated in the community
and care managers will be the pivotal professionals for that. Mike - For the vast majority of disabled people the issue of
Of course you also have to have an ideology which allows that retrenchment is not an issue at all. Disabled people have
to happen, an ideology which says disability is a personal always been on the margins, always missed out on services.
tragedy. It wasn’t that somehow we had this wonderful infrastructure
of services set in the post war settlement and then in the 70s
Carolyne - So there is no thanks for being the deserving and 80s it all fell apart. '
poor rather than the undeserving because the outcome is
the same. If we look at the lives of those disabled people Carolyne - So have disabled people never felt beneficiaries
who have to rely on public welfare today, have there been of the so called Welfare State?
any benefits as a result of community care reforms and the
creed of consumerism which is thriving within social work? Mike - Absolutely not. Look what is on offer -— residential
care (hospitals, geriatric wards) and day centres. Benefits are
1\/like - The short answer to that is no. I don't know anywhere usually bribes to keep people out of the labour market rather
in the history of humanity where people have given up power. than genuine attempts to integrate disabled people into society.
Power has to be taken from people and none of the power that All of these things can be seen as the utter failure of the
people have over the lives of disabled people is going to be
Page 8
welfare state to address the concerns of disabled people - to think they were just irrelevant but, they’re not they’re
concerns which disabled people share with everyone - like dangerous. They’re part of what Gramsci would have cafled
getting a job, having enough money, kids going to the same the organisation of consent. They give the impression that
school as other kids, catching a bus, going to the cinema, society cares about disability and that disabled people are a
having your own front door, deciding when to get up etc etc. priority and that society is actually trying to do something to
address the problems and issues of disabled people. That is a
|
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Carolyne - Are you saying that state-provided welfare, lie, which is why we have to continually confront them, which
situated within capitalism, could never provide these kinds is why we have to continue to ridicule their attempts to use
‘I
of things? T our language and to focus on our issues. The Spastics Society
can change its name and call itself whatever empowering
Mike - The ideology of personal tragedy has dominated policy name it wants but it will still be an organisation of consent, it
throughout the 1940s to the 1980s. Only now is it being will still be in the business of providing segregative education,
challenged by what we (disabled people) call the social model. it will still be perpetrating the ideology of conductive
If we look at the historical evidence there is absolutely no education and so on. These organisations aren't -going to
doubt that this is true- This raises the question, as a socialist disappear - we’ll actually have to get rid of them.
who is committed to state provided welfare,of whether or not
the state, in theory, is able to provide goods. There are very Carolyne - Who are the activists? How did disabled people
few examples of where the state has delivered in terms of first get this sense of community - what impact have
giving access to the level of services which disabled people advances in technology had upon the opportunifies of
want. On the other hand, I can think of lots of examples disabled people to collectivise?
where the market can. The Independent Living Fund, for
example, gives disabled people money to purchase personal Mike - We have to go back to history. It is certainly true that
assistance. there is a new movement which has emerged in the last 15
years. But it would be doing violence to history if we didn’t
Carolyne - Are disabled people organising to say this is acknowledge the struggles of blind and deaf people. Deaf
what we want? O people have struggled for about 200 years to preserve their
culture and language. This has been against the fiercest of
Mike - At the heart of services that disabled people want are oppression you could- imagine, which includes physically
Centres of Integrated Living. There are 6, or 7 of these in this torturing children by forcing them to sit on their hands and
country. Xou could say that’s not many S-there are 110 Social giving them cochlea implants which are absolutely no use
Services Departments or whatever - but the problems are that whatsoever. Blind people were on the Jarrow March in the
they are under-resourced and there is of resistance to 19305. Blind people taking direct action is a tradition going
them. back to the 19th century. lt’s important that this history
doesn’t get lost. Having said that, is true that from the 70’s
Carolyne - Can you explain what these Centres are about? onwards there has been something different. Different
struggles have been emerging, moving away from single
Mike - Basically CIL’s started in the 1960s in Calivfornia. impairment issues. Attempts have been made to form a
Individual disabled people got together locally saying that the broader coalition amongst impaired people. A number of
services they were receiving were nonsensical and even if they factors are to do with this:
were what people wanted they got them not at the times they
wanted, etc. There are now about 200 CIL’s throughout the 1) By the l970’s disabled people were coming to realise that
world. Disabled people need a base and CIL’s serve as one 30 years t of state welfare was doing nothing. Despite the
location, contact points to enable us to collectively organise, supposed welfare state disabled people were increasingly
to pressure local authorities to shift their perceptions and becoming discontented and lacking in any control;
services. They are not National Independent Living Centres, 2) The influence of the civil rights movement particularly in
provided by the Department of Health or Social Services the USA. This was a stimulus to Black people, women, gay
Departments and staffed by Occupational Therapists. They are rights. There was an interchange and cross flow of ideas
resource centres run by disabled people. Some provide things between disabled people in America and Canada and here and
like information service, peer counselling services, wheelchair vice versa; p
services, a personal assistance scheme may well be located in 3) The complete and utter failure of the traditional voluntary
the CIL and so on. The amount of money spent on CIL’s is sector to represent disabled people. Organisations with their
minuscule compared to the £523 million being poured, into royal titles and do-gooders who eventually get their OBEs for
Community Care. keeping disabled people exactly where they were in the first
place - which is down at the bottom, stuck in residential
- .|-
Carolyne - Outside of public welfare, what challenges have homes, stuck in their own homes, ferried to and from day
there been to organisations and charities such as Mencap centres; p ,
and the Spastics Society, organisations which arguably are 4) As a socialist it is not always easy to talk about these things
. _ _ fl. -__ _ I II.
dinosaurs? but there is the role of individuals which has beentimportant.
. I . . d _
Some were escaping residential care others were people who
Mike - Well they are not dinosaurs because dinosaurs are not had cut their teeth in socialist politics elsewhere, who spent
dangerous. These organisations are actually dangerous. I used their time trying to convince the Labour Party and other left
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of centre groups" that disability ‘was an issue ‘andfailed. There
of people in the movement have limited perspectives. They
were also people who had come from struggles in South see themselves as wanting to join the game and therefore want
Africa and so on. ’ “ s the rules changed.
All these came together in a melting pot of discontent. Carolyne - You’d want another game?
Carolyne - Given that there have been political disabled Mike - We can’t get rid of impairments. The disabling
people throughout history, what exactly do you think has consequences of impairments could disappear. But even under
prompted the growfla in disability activism? socialism there are still going to be impairments so the issue
then is this, if you live in a society in which people are judged
Mike - It’s complicated to unpick. It is certainly true that over by their physical prowess - whether it be prowess in terms of
the years some opporttmities have opened up. More and more your ability to operate machinery or to be pasted on the front
disabled people have managed to get into higher education and of magazines - then disabled people are always going to miss
get some kind of education and develop the understanding out. We can have the most wonderful cultural movement
that disability is not an individual problem but a societal amongst disabled people which stresses and celebrates
problem and that collective action is important. I don’t want disabilities but at end of the day if society is based upon
to minimise changes like om‘ access to the built environment, physical prowess disabled people are going to find it hard to
technological changes eg telephones, fax machines , minicoms compete.
and so on - that has obviously been a factor but related to that
Carolyne - If the long term strategy is to change the game,
is growing awareness of disability as a political issue which is
who do you see as your allies?
not about accessing our demands
within the ordinary party political
Mike - I had a very interesting
system. Part of this collective
discussion with a disabled person
realisation has also been about
who is a political activist within
previously impairment specific
the Labour Party only last
groups beginning to get together
saying ok we’ve had differences weekend. He was saying that we
(well worn state tactic for are profoundly misguided and
that what we ought to be doing is
keeping groups divided)in the
joining the Labour Party because
past but let’s work together now.
we are more likely to get anti-
There is a history of division,
which has ban partly fostered by @ discrimination legislation in the
ourselves but partly deliberate i Labour Party than anywhere else.
state intervention. My response was that we might
but that we’d also get a
Carolyne - Do you think that professionalised bureaucracy
prevailing theories within the called a disability commission to
disability movement are go with it. And probably lots of
implicitly socialist? key jobs for white males. The
point is that if we are going to
Mike - I would say yes. One of take on board issues of disability
things you have to understand seriously then we have to
about the disabled movement, because it’s only grown over fundamentally change the political system. That goes beyond
the last 15 years is we haven’t had a great deal of time to do ideas about just opening up the party system and raising
our thinking. There was an organisation called the Union of consciousness. It’s about the nature of representation itself. At
Physically Impaired Against Segregation which was quite the moment politics is a game mainly played by white middle
clearly a leftist think tank if you like and did a lot of very class middle aged men because of the way it is structured and
important work, laying the theoretical parameters of the rest organised. Even if disabled people could find parties they
of the movement. want to be active in, how the hell are they going to stand to
be an MP, pressing the flesh and going through all the
Carolyne - Weren’t they brandished as Marxists‘? constituencies and so on? And if we’re serious about having
a political system which is accountable to, and which
lvlike - Yes. Some of them were! But not all of them. represents, a whole range of groups in society, we need
fundamental change which goes beyond tinkering at the
I think the issue that the movement hasn’t had time to talk margins. I
about is what is our goal? To integrate disabled people into
society as it is? Are we quite happy with the game but all we Carolyne - Personally, would you become involved in ea
want is the rules changed to accommodate us? Or do we want political party if a) it was practically possible for you and
to change the nature of the game — do we want to play a new b) the party represented ideas and values which you share.
game altogether; And we haven’t really had a chance to
debate that. I would say e -if I was pushed - that the majority Mike - My own view is that the whole system is totally
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