One of the reasons I didn’t condemn the strategy used by the truckers is simple: For a couple decades now, I’ve been saying that this general sort of thing is what the left should do. Change happens only when you inflict real pain. In fact, the trucker protests aren’t that new, this sort of thing happens in France all the time. Truckers have big vehicles they can use to block roads in a way that’s harder to stop than a bunch of people just lining up or even chaining themselves up.
Commenter someofparts, riffing off Lambert said it well:
So then, the question Strether raised that I keep thinking about is – why isn’t it the left wing doing this? Since a caravan that disrupts the supply chain is a brilliant way to pressure our leaders, why isn’t it being done by the big unions instead of the shopkeepers?
Obviously the real question I am chewing on is to wonder what needs to change so that it IS the unions doing this instead of the bourgeoisie? I don’t have any ready answers to that question, but I figure that having a clear idea of where we need to go is the first step. The prospect of supply chain disruption sponsored by the teamsters on behalf of the real working class is a good place to start.
Unions are scared.
They have central headquarters and bank accounts. It is trivial and easy for them to be broken by seizing their assets. They feel they must keep within the letter of what the law allows, because they know what happens if they don’t.
For whatever reason, the truckers here are not scared of asset seizure, which is interesting, because the government easily could take their licenses and their trucks and probably hit them with damages.
As part of my politics book series, I talked about legitimacy. In the neoliberal world order, the right is legitimate, and so are neoliberals (our “center”) but the left and unions aren’t. It is okay to mess other people up in the name of right-wing values, but not in the name of the left-wing (economic, not social) values. There’s some tolerance for cultural left-wingism, since neoliberal elites are more than good with it, but not for economic left-wing populism.
Back during “Occupy Wall Street,” I saw a march in Toronto. It was surrounded on three sides by police (the fourth being pressed up against one side of the road. They had paddy wagons and horse-cops right there, right next to the protesters. I also saw the G-7 protests in Toronto, with the kettling of protestors and mass (unconstitutional, but not illegal) arrests.
Protesting the fundamental economic relationships that control our society is not allowed. Effective unions lead to wages rising faster than inflation and it is FUNDAMENTAL to our order that wages for most people must not rise faster than inflation. (Yes, that’s not what the figures say, but the inflation statistics are systematically manipulated.)
The left cannot do what the truckers do because if they did, they would be shut down with extreme violence — if they were even allowed to get going. Remember, the Ottawa police chief let the truckers set up, knowing in advance what they were going to do.
Note also, that the right uses decentralized action a lot. Their shooters are created by their ideology, but act individually. The truckers may have organization, but they are individuals. Each truck has to be seized individually. There is some central organization, and when its visible it’s taken out (the shut down of the GoFundMe) but mostly it’s buried in the financial and third-party weeds. Ezra Levant of Rebel news, for example, hired a lawyer to fight parking tickets for the truckers. He’s not directly involved so far as we know yet, but he is indirectly involved.
Then there’s Ontario’s Prime Minister, Doug Ford. Doug could have this stuff broken up easily, and if it truly does need the military, he’s the person with the authority to call them in (the Feds arguably can’t without passing a new law). Doug’s daughter is with the protesters.
FDR alleged (but only allegedly) once said, “You’ve convinced me. I agree with what you’ve said. Now go out and make me do it.” Doug almost certainly agrees with the truckers, but he knows that polling is against him.
“Make me do it.”
Killing people for the market is economic orthodoxy. Impoverishing people so the rich can get richer is economic orthodoxy. Taking care of people, in the US, Canada, and Britain is against the ruling ideology — it is actually not legitimate. (It is in China and Japan, as people there are viewed as productive assets, not as assets to be mined.)
For unions to do what the truckers do they would have to start by decentralizing. No significant headquarters, few assets to be seized, and leadership that doesn’t matter because anyone can lead. If the “president” is locked up, it doesn’t matter because someone else steps up, and regular members know what to do anyway.
Plus, there needs to an implicit threat. “If you take us out by force, we will keep showing up, and you can’t lock us all up.” The “truckers” (most truckers disagree with them, including the Teamsters) belong to a movement that shows up at school board meetings, that pickets hospitals & legislatures and threatens nurses, and that is generally perceived as dangerous. Politicians don’t feel entirely safe using force and law against them, though this is (or was) far more true in the US than in Canada. The left has spent generations telling themselves that violence is always bad and that even the threat of it should never ever even be considered because Gandhi, Gandhi, Gandhi.
All people are equal, but some people are more equal than others. All protests are equal, but some protests are more equal. Some ideologies are far more equal than others.
In the thirties, it was not unknown for unions to fight the police, straight up. The Feds would often stay out of it, and usually there was no attempt to destroy the union as a whole. Unions were legitimate, especially since FDR generally supported them and wouldn’t let the Feds intervene.
Today, unions are illegitimate according to the dominant ideologies. Practically the first thing Reagan did was break a major union (the Air Traffic Controllers). Thatcher showed she was in charge and that things had changed by defeating the Miners in Britain. Punching left is good, punching right is verboten.
The “truckers” can do what they’re doing because they’re doing it in service of right-wing values, not left-wing ones, and they are supported by powerful elite factions, including most of Canada’s Conservative party.
They may well be stopped, and even have the law used against them, mainly because they’ve stopped trade between the US and Canada, but they would never have been allowed to run this far if they were left-wing. They’re legitimate, they have elite backing and the cops are sympathetic.
These are also, by the way, the pre-conditions for revolution: An elite faction in support, enforcer class unwilling to step up, and a popular faction in support (although they are decided minority, which is the only reason they aren’t already in charge).