Bernie, AOC and the Chartist movement of British workers in the 1800s

What the founders of the modern socialist movement called the first working class party in history came together in Britain in the 1830s around a petition called the People's Charter. It demanded a series of democratic reforms, such as universal male suffrage, annual parliamentary elections, and a salary for the members of parliament so that regular working people, and not just the rich, could be legislators.

The recent and somewhat humorous spat around Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's saying she couldn't afford to rent an apartment in DC until she started getting her regular salary as a Congresswoman in January reminded me of the Chartist movement and its demand for a paycheck for legislators.

Because if newly-elected members need to spend the two months between the election and the swearing-in ceremony on getting ready, then they should be paid.

I say somewhat humorous because the talking gasbags on Fox news tried to shame her for what they viewed as her pecuniary embarrassment.

They did not even suspect that in fact they were helping her to drive home a political point that's been at the center of all she's been doing: this is not "that government of the people, by the people, for the people," that Lincoln evoked in his Gettysburg Address, but rather one of the very rich..

So it was awesome to see her respond:

There is no reason to be ashamed or embarrassed.
Mocking lower incomes is exactly how those who benefit from + promote wealth inequality the most keep everyday people silent about 1 of the worst threats to American society: that the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.

That response denouncing the sense of shame and embarrassment that the rich and their media try to drill into us reminded me of an article by Marx where he says the uplifting of the working class wasn't mainly a question of money but of dignity: "the proletariat ... needs its courage, its self-confidence, its pride and its sense of independence even more than its bread."

Which brings us back to the Chartist movement, because Marx and Engels, the founder of the modern socialist movement, said the Chartists were the first working class party. But in fact they were nothing like what we think of a party. They had no ballot line and didn't run candidates, no real centralized national structure, etc. But the essence of a "political party" was there -- people that shared a common outlook and had organized themselves as a distinct group around demands for changing the government.

I believe that's what Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and a few others in Congress and state legislatures represent: the beginnings of a worker's party in the United States. The essence of it is a coalescence of politicians and groups that share an identification with the working class and a series of common immediate goals ($15 minimum wage, Medicare for all, legalization of the undocumented, etc.).

Right now they are allied with a broader progressive wing in Congress and throughout the Democratic Party.

But you can still tell which are the socialists and conscious working class representatives because they are the ones that tell you that they cannot change things, only we can do it, and place themselves at the service of the social movements.

There is a debate among many socialists, including in the Democratic Socialists of America, about this approach of running on the Democratic Party ballot lines and caucusing not just with the more progressive democrats but even with the traditional neoliberal hacks like Nancy Pelosi. Some turn their back on using Democrat ballot lines while others insist that is OK provided we proclaim that the Democratic Party cannot be reformed or refuse to have anything to do with the traditional democrats on the ticket.

But I think this system of alliances is dictated by the logic of the situation in Congress and most of all by the fact that most working people do not yet understand the difference between a Bernie Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez and a Pelosi or Schumer.

They seem to be differences about how far we can go or how hard we can push for certain reforms. But in reality, the real differences are about class.

And there lies the main problem: working class consciousness is barely being awakened.

So by and large, even as you explain the inadequacy of the moderate "liberal" proposals, in a showdown with the right you usually go along with the moderates. This is an approach known in the movement of a 100 years ago as "critical support." We want those who still follow the moderates to see we will not stand in the way of the more modest proposal, and, on the contrary, since we haven't yet convinced most people that is not a solution, we want it to be adopted so they can see for themselves that it falls short.

A good example of this logic is Obamacare. Because people have seen in practice its problems and limitations, support for Medicare for All has been growing.

Can these tactics work? They are derived from long experience of the socialist movement but there has never been a situation comparable to ours, where working class consciousness had been absent for about a half century. And tactics are concrete for a specific time, place and circumstance.

But we should remember that while ultimate success may very much depend on what we do, not so for ultimate failure. This incipient working class radicalization might be reversed if the ruling class decided to grant significant concessions. And with the huge super-profits they have been reaping, they have the resources to do it.

--José G. Pérez