The demand for cheaper fuel is not, structurally, a small-business demand. It is a working-class demand. The rural nurse driving forty minutes to a shift. The care worker whose take-home pay is partially consumed by the commute. The family heating a poorly insulated house with oil because the gas grid does not reach them. None of these people own the vehicles they depend on in any economically meaningful sense — they own a car the way a worker owns their tools, because without it they cannot get to work or keep warm.
The petit-bourgeois character of the leadership of these protests is a real analytical observation about who organised the convoys and whose machinery blocked the roads. It is not an accurate description of the social base of people who supported the protests, sympathised with them, or would benefit from the demands. Those are overwhelmingly working-class people whose dependency on fossil fuels is not a lifestyle choice but a consequence of decades of failure to build public transport infrastructure and retrofit housing stock.
The socialist response to that reality is not to explain to people why their fuel costs are actually a climate policy instrument and they should accept them. It is to say: the carbon tax as currently structured makes you pay for the transition while the data centres and the oil companies do not. That is the argument PBP made. It is the right one.
Thanks for this, just wanted to say theres a danger in allowing the press releases to be the story here, in real terms PBP are the smallest part of a rickety anti FFG coalition, within which SF is absolutely hegemonic. PBP are dependent on their transfers, work with them on a local level (where in typical revolutionary left fashion they tend to sow more than they reap) and have committed to going into government with them on some sort of a United front basis. I don't say this to be annoying but just that it's a bigger predicament than supposedly class independent programmes can solve
My understanding is the PBP is committed to offering external support to an SF government that implements a minimum programme of reforms, which SF will almost certainly not implement.
That's certainly the way elements within the party phrase it. Insofar as it's the case again it's a case of programme > concrete, not least in supporting SF so they can fail demonstratively
What does "where in typical revolutionary left fashion they tend to sow more than they reap" mean? Do you mean that they manage to do some good but don't see much benefits, or that they put in a lot of work for relatively little effect?
bit of both. from personal experience I'd say they put a lot into local campaigns - in resources and cadre hours - which involve collaboration with larger parties like SF and Soc Dems, but that the larger parties are in a better position to benefit from that visibility and effort, can swing in at the last minute etc.
This was also the experience of the Yes campaign during the Scottish referendum. But these things are affected by the dynamic we create through agitation and propaganda: it's about the comparative space between the anticapitalists and the moderate reformers. When it's unfavourable to us, fewer people come to us than towards larger options. But when it's more favourable, the anticapitalists can win more of what they create.
sorry, my answer might be too grandiose relative to your q. DC underlines the importance of maintaining that space which can be more or less effective under particular circumstances, I don't disagree but something a friend of mine said recently which I've been thinking about is the importance of having that 'I told you so' moment (when the larger reformists let everyone down) happen from a place of solidarity. But yes, hard to do if you're not 'bigger'
I think PBP has done impressive work in its campaigning over the years and has more than punched above its weight in shaping the national discourse, but all revolutionary parties in the west, as far as my knowledge goes and in my own view, are waiting for a dispersed and demoralised working class to figure out how to organise and enforce itself. I'm not a spontaneist (a word?) but there's only so far a revolutionary cadre can move things along in the absence of the class
I think it's a bit of both. In my personal experience PBP put a lot out there in terms of running campaigns in nominal collaboration with softer left parties like SF and the Social Democrats - use more resources, expend more cadre hours - but it's those larger organisations who are in a position to soak up the credit or visibility
The demand for cheaper fuel is not, structurally, a small-business demand. It is a working-class demand. The rural nurse driving forty minutes to a shift. The care worker whose take-home pay is partially consumed by the commute. The family heating a poorly insulated house with oil because the gas grid does not reach them. None of these people own the vehicles they depend on in any economically meaningful sense — they own a car the way a worker owns their tools, because without it they cannot get to work or keep warm.
The petit-bourgeois character of the leadership of these protests is a real analytical observation about who organised the convoys and whose machinery blocked the roads. It is not an accurate description of the social base of people who supported the protests, sympathised with them, or would benefit from the demands. Those are overwhelmingly working-class people whose dependency on fossil fuels is not a lifestyle choice but a consequence of decades of failure to build public transport infrastructure and retrofit housing stock.
The socialist response to that reality is not to explain to people why their fuel costs are actually a climate policy instrument and they should accept them. It is to say: the carbon tax as currently structured makes you pay for the transition while the data centres and the oil companies do not. That is the argument PBP made. It is the right one.
Thanks for this, just wanted to say theres a danger in allowing the press releases to be the story here, in real terms PBP are the smallest part of a rickety anti FFG coalition, within which SF is absolutely hegemonic. PBP are dependent on their transfers, work with them on a local level (where in typical revolutionary left fashion they tend to sow more than they reap) and have committed to going into government with them on some sort of a United front basis. I don't say this to be annoying but just that it's a bigger predicament than supposedly class independent programmes can solve
My understanding is the PBP is committed to offering external support to an SF government that implements a minimum programme of reforms, which SF will almost certainly not implement.
As far as I know PBP is not committed to this. The faction that advocated for this position split from PBP in 2025.
That's certainly the way elements within the party phrase it. Insofar as it's the case again it's a case of programme > concrete, not least in supporting SF so they can fail demonstratively
What does "where in typical revolutionary left fashion they tend to sow more than they reap" mean? Do you mean that they manage to do some good but don't see much benefits, or that they put in a lot of work for relatively little effect?
bit of both. from personal experience I'd say they put a lot into local campaigns - in resources and cadre hours - which involve collaboration with larger parties like SF and Soc Dems, but that the larger parties are in a better position to benefit from that visibility and effort, can swing in at the last minute etc.
This was also the experience of the Yes campaign during the Scottish referendum. But these things are affected by the dynamic we create through agitation and propaganda: it's about the comparative space between the anticapitalists and the moderate reformers. When it's unfavourable to us, fewer people come to us than towards larger options. But when it's more favourable, the anticapitalists can win more of what they create.
Do you think there's any good ways of avoiding that, or is the only solution "be bigger"?
sorry, my answer might be too grandiose relative to your q. DC underlines the importance of maintaining that space which can be more or less effective under particular circumstances, I don't disagree but something a friend of mine said recently which I've been thinking about is the importance of having that 'I told you so' moment (when the larger reformists let everyone down) happen from a place of solidarity. But yes, hard to do if you're not 'bigger'
Even at that moment, it's not enough to be right. You have to be an attractive pole, with a plan.
I think PBP has done impressive work in its campaigning over the years and has more than punched above its weight in shaping the national discourse, but all revolutionary parties in the west, as far as my knowledge goes and in my own view, are waiting for a dispersed and demoralised working class to figure out how to organise and enforce itself. I'm not a spontaneist (a word?) but there's only so far a revolutionary cadre can move things along in the absence of the class
I think it's a bit of both. In my personal experience PBP put a lot out there in terms of running campaigns in nominal collaboration with softer left parties like SF and the Social Democrats - use more resources, expend more cadre hours - but it's those larger organisations who are in a position to soak up the credit or visibility