PROVIDENCE WORKER’S DEFENSE
PEACE – LAND – BREAD
This is a short pamphlet from a larger PWD work. If you are interested please reach out.
This document is also made up from readings and conversations in Providence by local workers, please feel free to keep the conversation going, this is not a definitive thing. We are building a foundation brick by brick.
Providence Worker’s Defense
This short piece is to explain the basics around the why and how of Providence Worker’s Defense. It’s not exhaustive, just a kind of quick introduction to who and why we are. There is always more to add and its our real hope that you will both contribute to these pages as well as the history of the Providence Worker’s Defense collective.
WHO WE ARE
PWD is just regular workers like you. Retirees, students, union members, artists, technicians, writers, the disabled, queer folks, Black, white, immigrant and indigenous. Really everyone. We came together in response to the election motivated by the fact that the working class was wholly missing from the conversation and replaced by narrow identity definitions, and an active gaslighting by both major parties about working people.
In the beginning meetings we really wished there was a way to get to the root causes of the problems we face, like high rents, low pay, endless fees and stuff like that. But also to make sure that those issues were linked closely to the rising reactionary consensus against immigrants, Black people and trans people. As working class people we recognized that it was capitalism at the heart of all these problems and more! That the state acts as the agent of capitalism.
If the pandemic taught us anything it is that it is the working class and the working class alone is essential to the functioning of society. PWD unapologetically says we can do it better. Even if we don’t have all the answers. So there you go! That’s who we are and we know we are better with you in it.
Why Providence Worker’s Defense!
PWD isn’t a party or seeks to gain some sort of supreme power. We don’t want to be yet another boss. Worker’s defense is what happens naturally when working people have had enough of the crap, are sick of being pushed around and stand up for ourselves and each other. If you believe that we are “all middle class” or “the politicians will do it” stop reading this isn’t for you. But if you see that we live in a sharply divided society along the lines of class, which often coincide with lines of our identities, welcome. So what does PWD mean by all this?
We live in a society with sharp and widening class division. Any illusions about the need for militancy or attachment to horse race politics should be gone by now. Simply, we live in a society defined by class, where capitalism, the state, and the ruling class dominate us. So let’s define some terms.
CAPITALISM: Capitalism is an economic system run purely for profit in the interests of a tiny class – THE CAPITALISTS – at the expense of the largest class. – THE WORKING CLASS – The entire scope of our society is geared to fill the ever growing needs of capitalism. It’s the mechanism by which we sell our work in exchange for money to buy goods and services we need, as the WORKING CLASS we also produced in the first place! But we only get a small part of the wealth that our work produces, the rest goes to the capitalist as profit. This is foundational to capitalism, for it to work the many have to produce wealth for the few. In the US there is no such A. thing as a “free market”, all it means is that the bosses are “free” to exploit us. Capitalism has nothing whatsoever to offer us except WAR, INSECURITY, RECESSION, and UNEMPLOYMENT. It is not true that capitalism will simply fall apart because of its own failures, it could limp along for centuries, dragging us through one crisis to the next. For that reason CAPITALISM MUST END.
THE STATE: Even though CAPITALISM is the dominant order in terms of production there are things it cannot do. Generally it cannot provide the “social” organization of society, this gap is filled by the STATE. The STATE is the way a small group can control and dominate us in the interests of the the ruling power in society – the CAPITALISTS. To give a sense of scale in the US the bottom 50% of society controls just 2% of the wealth.
The STATE is a set of institutions and groups that govern. These are the president, congress, churches, civil service, the police, courts, and schools. The goal of government is to keep class conflict from boiling over and manage competition between capitalists, making sure of the smooth running of society. This is done by enforcing the laws of PRIVATE PROPERTY and the rights of the capitalist to buy and sell it.
The STATE existed long before capitalism, it’s always been a form of control and always acts in the interest of whatever ruling class is in power, and whatever economic system is in fashion at the time. In the US we are given a “choice” every few years of whatever party we’d like to govern us. This “choice” like so many other “choices” it’s a false one, it’s a grift to fool us into thinking we can change things with our vote alone, it also allows us to focus our energies on figureheads and personalities to blame for our problems.
The reality is the power of the STATE is with the CAPITALISTS alone, they pull the strings on their puppets. With power that concentrated there is always a real risk of a small group of fascists seizing power.
So because CAPITALISM represents exploitation and the STATE represents domination it makes sense that the society they have made splits people into different groups or classes based on their relationship to the state
THE RULING CLASS: The top 5% (or so) of the population. These are big corporations and those C-Suite occupants, large landowners, judges, chiefs of police, generals, admirals.
There are two things that give you a place in the RULING CLASS, WEALTH and POWER, but they don’t directly govern that is left to the STATE’S politicians and officials. The RULING CLASS doesn’t just sit around lounging with cigars and caviar scheming about how to oppress us, they don’t need to most of the time. So how do they rule? By the evergreen trick of divide and conquer, pitting white against Black, men against women, straight against gay, democrat against republican, worker against worker. This breaks down feelings of working class solidarity, working class identity, and working class unity, and without those things revolution is just a dream.
THE MIDDLE CLASS: In the US this is about 20% of the population. This is the professional and managerial group like lawyers, doctors, journalists, professors, military officers, priests, small business owners, small landlords, teachers, NGO directors. Direct contact between the RULING CLASS and the WORKING CLASS is extremely unlikely. Almost all inter-class contact happens between the MIDDLE CLASS and the WORKING CLASS. The MIDDLE CLASS is layered with its own intra class status system, all performing different and specialized tasks and jobs necessary for CAPITALIST society to work. Simply the MIDDLE CLASS manage us in the interests of the RULING CLASS.
The most obvious role of the MIDDLE CLASS is managing the economy, business management, factory management, accountants, lawyers. These are the go to people and the highest earners of the MIDDLE CLASS because without them capitalism would fall apart.
A less obvious role of the MIDDLE CLASS is to make intellectual and cultural content which serve the interests of the RULING CLASS and become part of our everyday thoughts. We’ve seen the endless repetition of some ideas, stereotypes, and myths to suppress and stifle our CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS and turn us into obedient and “model citizens”. These can be truly ugly and crude ideas like “immigrants are lazy”, “trans people are deviants” or well thought out like “we live in a classless society” or “if you work hard you too can be a billionaire”. The examples of this group are media companies, advertising, education, and religion.
CAPITALISM needs raw materials to extract and media and ideas are also that raw material. It also has to adapt to survive. MIDDLE CLASS intellectuals, researchers, think tanks, and NGOs provide the data to make this possible. This is true from universities, to “green’ entrepreneurs.
Given their role as a buffer, and the history of revolution and struggle the MIDDLE CLASS often splits in times of class conflict, or revolutionary periods. PWD of course welcomes all who wish to struggle for working class liberation. However PWD’s authentic WORKING CLASS make up and culture cannot be made subordinate to the more demure wishes of theMIDDLE CLASS.
THE WORKING CLASS (us): The easiest way to say this is, the working class is everyone else. Not a joke! If you are not the RULING CLASS, or the MIDDLE CLASS and live by your work or your wits, and not by ownership of property that generates wealth you are WORKING CLASS. WELCOME!
Part of WORKING CLASS IDENTITY is “social power”. The WORKING CLASS do not have power, we are told what to do. We are made by our relationship to CAPITALISM not by what we do, but by what is done to us. This doesn’t mean we are powerless, not at all. The STATE spends unimaginable money, time, and energy to keep us in our place. Because our labor is at the heart of day to day practical economic activity it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that literally everything depends on whether we “play the game” or not.
CLASS STRUGGLE: We can see that ultimately capitalism simply can’t work, we don’t have enough planets to keep plundering, we are too poor, too tired, and too sick for things not to change. That gives us options.
- Do nothing, because you believe you may someday be a member of the RULING CLASS, or are a member of that club. Or are MIDDLE CLASS and believe that you have too much to lose.
- Be cynical and believe that this is the way it has always been and the way it will always be. Bury your head in the sand.
- Or REVOLT! Know in your heart that things must change and that we have to agitate and organize to do it.
There are choices in how we show we want the system to change. Maybe it’s voting, great! Sports are fun! Just always recognize that ultimately you are voting to either expand or shrink the cage, not eliminate the cage. You could choose to drop out completely, that removes chances of mutual aid and community support as well as the emotional and community bonds that are so necessary for survival. Or direct WORKING CLASS action against the tools that oppress us, keep us insecure, cold and hungry.
Our community here in Providence is vitally important. We can’t be liberated without massive popular support. This means we are not utopian, or promise a heaven on Earth. With clear eyes we must recognize the anti-social problems of misogyny, racism, anti-blackism, transphobia, homophobia, xenophobia, interpersonal crime. We just believe that these are problems best solved by us and not by an “expert” who will then use it to point to the pathologies of workers. We won’t expect someone to do it for us, we will do it ourselves.
AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
There are parties and organizations that will offer a fully formed vision of what the revolution will look like. Providence Worker’s Defense does not. Just like the fact that times and conditions change, as well as our individual identities and experiences that make up PWD can change. We believe that any fully formed plan for the after goes against our righteous and militant democratic impulse. So after the revolution it will be the working class that will decide what it looks like, informed by theory and our needs. Not a religious text.
SO LET’S FIGHT THE CLASS WAR TOGETHER!
JOIN
PROVIDENCE WORKER’S DEFENSE!
PROVIDENCE WORKERS DEFENSE 