We have had a lot of ideas about capitalism. Imperialiem, the stale, the ruline class, the trade union bureaucracy — all these general realities.
We have even, in recent years, had quite a bit to say about 'the family" in general terms, even though it is not centrally org anised in quite the same way. But we have produced little to explain could almost conclude that Marxists regard che places in which people Live as irrelevant, and any particular attacaments to incm, wheiher socially or politically, or through romantic nonsense, the products Problems have arisen in recent wears for these soris of Marxisi perspective. In the first place, there was a phase, in the 1960s, when industriad struggles were impatient of the central union parcaucracies - IE CLACO highly localised, This phase was, beginning of the 1970s, when strikes became longer, more dirficult, more national and more often political. But it still left a more lively, grass-roots. shopMoor organisation in the local. ities.
Some groups on the left saw the end of this phase as indication of the need not just for mere centralised organisation by soc ialists, hut ultimately for a highty one-sided caricature OTЯ CHI tralised command structure. What they ignored were a numher of other trends which were quite central to the modern class struggie. Firstly there were the contradictions of a period of more contraasca and policess induscrial struggle. On the one hand, a successful generalisation of the industrial strugale requires struggle, a broad politiciaation of the struggle at ils roots, which brings in ail the other social Issues to rein standing of the trends which 1 have just described: an explanation of the importance of local strupales. with our understanding of capitalisen and dass struggle as a whole, So far, as 1 have said Marst theory has produced fittle reflection on this subject.
Marxist tboory has indeed speot much of the last thirty years tryg to catch wp. so to speak, with the changes in capitalism -identifying and explaining the new features sănce the second world war. But most writing has been concerned with the processes of capitalist accumulation, and with the trends towards even greater centralisation which have been Involved. Attention bas been focussed on concentration of capital in larger and larger units - the multi-national corporation for example — and the crucial role of states in vastly expanding their spending and in 'plannins' ahole cconomies. In Terms ortne analysis, any interest in SOIE The women's movement was vitally importans in pinpointing what it was, in theoretical terms, which was missing. This is not to say that other issues welfare -LiC EINEIT D higher education (which was posed by the srudent moscanent) — had not began to suggest the question. Hat whar the women's movement did, by forcing Marxista lo look at the amis and what women did in the bome, was to bring to the fore the missing dimension. This was the insportance of the way in which tbe workforce is developed and maintained for the system's use In Marxist terras, this was the issue of the reprodaction of labour power.
Women's "donnestle labour is in fact the oldest, most basic and most neglected component of the processes by which labour power is reproduced. It had been taken for granted for generations. But in modern capitalism, increasingly complemented by. combined extent replaced by other processes - Indeed it is bighty arguable that the new wocertainty in the status of domestic labour was responsible for making it problematic, reproduction of labour power in modern capitalism is increasingly not just a question national of isolated women in individual families, but a collective matter. the "Reproduction' is socialised parily by DeIne laken capitalist firms, becoming Ene ousiness state, on bebalf of the system as a whole.
Bur what has this got to do the with the role of localities modern capitalism and its class struggle? This is where a very book by Marxist, The Urben Question by Manuel Castells (Arnold E5.95), in. Castells started from within the tradition of the "urban social sciences", the large body of assunes that there is a separate "urban' social reality which can be analysed by special concepts. Castells agreed that tbere were important problemis ban crisis' for example - but he did not accept either "tbe moralistic or integrationist occupations of the old urban sociology or perspective of the new urban political science', was sote labour power* with modern urban areas, not, lor example, plain cities in ancient or eval societies which unty by bur mainly capitalism, OL Ine GITTOUTEN in out academie work which vice versa from the pretechnocratic Instead be looked in the Marxist tradition for what explained the realities main described as urban"', and decided that cities or urban areas were above all defined as units based on "collective consumption' They were "residential units of Community Castells is obviously dealing and is trying to medi based on administrative-political and commercial activities. Tnis clas ical "city, he argues, was actu detail.
which created more the mately the great metropolitan regions of today. And although industry may have been tied, in ils early phases, by specific res materials to apecific locations, the nature of modern technolog and communications means chat there are generally few narural or technical limits in industrial loManpower appears a the fundamental constraint of modern industry". It is the avaitability of labour power, and of the infrastructure which produces it, which ties industry to existing urban areas, rather tbab larger From all this theorisin backed up by detailed studie United States and • Castells concludes that the realicies of space, le the organisation of urban arcas or borough Bocalities in general, are not so wes. He sees them rather as a series Di struggles relatine to "secondary structural issues' (i.e. issues which are secondary to the main structural conflict between capital and labour in produc tion), which can however become parclculer point in time.
'THE LOCAL STATE One question which Castells does not deal with specifically is the nature of "the local scate", the which the state intervenes in the process of 'collective consumption. English EleC socialist writers have, bowever begun to focus on this. There was an excellent pampblet from the Development Project. Local Government Becomes Rig Business by Jobn Beningron Now Cynthia Cockburn has written a full-length study, The Local State: Management of Cities and People (Pluto £2.95), which takes up this question in some Local government conjures up image of something vers parish LUT. hall' — in the minds of most people, and many on the far left have been all too glad to evade thinking about it But in face it has become very big business, Lib spending increasing even Faster chan the state's as a whole. The tighter beatral gor. ernment control over its finances tellects its enhanced role, rather than a decline. One aspect of this has beco the roorganisation into units. which Cockbarn analyses, is the de velopment of new, more centrai ised, management structures, based on the ideology of corpo rate management' adapted from private industryLocal gavernment, at district/ кОртУ тедОю level, is not the sole represent It is wrong. Whetber or not wha she says is completely true, as in practice tbe lett has increasingly related to areas of struzgle away tram the factory floor, it is certainly correct tbat our theory DOE really reflected this change. "Industrial strugrie in the key industries is still the heart of the labour moveisent and will remain so, ' as Cockburit maintains, But acrion over services, by working peopie as nsers of thei, and local state workers- for whom the kind of ich they do affects the way they struggle is an increasingly vital SOCIALIST UNITY AND LOCAL POLITICS The Labour Party is so involv ed in the local sate that any reliance on its councillors in the struggle is, as Cockburn shows in che case of Lambeth, a ver wangerous business. Even th individual left-wing back beocher, however good his or her intentions, is - apart from being subject to the pressures of the group machine. The ЧРЕ CO BISS LOU ДОТ ТО Cockburn) of how a new socialist strugale in the field of repro duction, can relate to the different kinds of strugale which are taking place and to the broces ses of local electoral democracs. One thing is certain: Socialist Unity's interventions in local cloctions must not be seen In real commitment to class struggle.
he Urban Queetion by Manu Castelle, £5.95, Armol
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 3 November 1977 Page 14