As Geoffrey Wheatcroft writes in The Guardian today, the Labour Party in the UK was founded to represent the working classes. The party took inspiration from the ideas of John Ruskin and his "great clarion call against materialist capitalism, utilitarian homo economicus, and the degradation of labour from its proper dignity".
Wheatcroft asserts that "By promising "the producers by hand and brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof", Clause 4 said that labour had its value not in exchange, as the economists insisted (and as our present rulers certainly agree), but in use, which was Ruskin's message. And it said also that there was an equality of dignity and esteem between "hand and brain", a view that New Labour has conspicuously shed."
This is a strand of progressive thought that seems to have been completely lost by our political parties today, with no such equivalence between technical and mental ability or skill being promoted by almost anyone. Yet this is a central facet of the autonomous education system created by the Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico...
Excerpt from Murielle Coppin and Juan Trujillo:-
Report on 2nd Encounter of Zapatistas and Peoples of the World, Exclusive for The Narco News Bulletin
From http://www.narconews.com/Issue46/article2743.html
"The system of autonomous health is handled nowadays by health promoters, some of them highly qualified, with a clinic (which includes a surgery room), various micro-clinics, several health centers, a labyrinth of clinical analysis, and an opticians office where they make lenses. Additionally, special attention is given to women’s health with this system. As for reproductive and sexual rights, health promoters are qualified to advise and educate the men as much as the women because “in many cases it is the men who prevent women from maintaining their health.”
These positive programs are a result of the health committee, the promoters and the population working together. As opposed to “bad government,” where only the doctors count, the doctors and the hospitals, the Councils of Good Government and their health promoters understood that there are many factors to be considered: hygiene, the system of drinking water, food, education, prevention. While the doctor attends only the illness, the developer attends to the sick, to the person, respecting his culture.
In turn, the table dedicated to Zapatista education, emphasized the promoters’ clear presentation. They explained the effort to accommodate displaced students from San Pedro Polhó and others towns, which is an example of the perseverance to create that the “Other Education.” The autonomous education project that is the Zapatista System of Autonomous Education excludes western forms of evaluation which “promote fear and competition among students,” the table asserted that “the children should learn to live without fear, because fear is the antithesis of democracy.”
In practice, this social effort adheres de facto to the agreements of San Andrés (signed by the federal government and the EZLN in 1996). It intends “to balance student education,” as is done in the Primero de Enero School where 180 students study three years at secondary level. The indigenous world view, according to promoters, is an inherent part of this effort that seeks to encourage “the love of humanity, in democracy and education for liberation.”
The key to the aforementioned, according to support base promoter Amos, is “not to separate manual activity from intellect.” So to be able to mix the communal, dialogue form of self-education of common indigenous life with the culture and history of the indigenous people of Mexico."
Geoffrey Wheatcroft - "They still use the name Labour, but now only sneer at the working class"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2140638,00.html
