I’ve been loosely following the goings-on in the Screen Actors Guild negotiations, and I admit that much of my info seems to come from the dueling statements by various factions which are reposted on Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood site, but it strikes me that there’s a really interesting case study here of an idea I’ve seen expressed by Gandhi (and certainly elsewhere). In a nutshell, SAG has gotten nowhere in its negotiations with the main group of production companies, the AMPTP. In order to try to gain some leverage in the negotiations, the national board of SAG wants to hold a strike authorization vote. They don’t actually want to strike yet, they just want to make it clear that a strike is a possibility if a suitable deal isn’t worked out. Various factions within SAG, along with many unions and industry participants outside of SAG, make the argument that given the current economy, it’s a terrible time to strike and possibly put people out of work, and SAG should just hurry up and try to get the best contract it can now.
OK, so where’s the Gandhi come in? One of the major tenets of his strategy of non-cooperation was that no minority can exploit a larger group without that group’s permission and cooperation. If the larger group simply refuses to cooperate, then the smaller group can not accomplish any of the things it wants to accomplish and therefore can not benefit from the oppression. In the case of India, Britain could gain no advantage from its empire without the labor of the colonial subjects, the general acceptance of colonial rule, and the work of native administrators and officials. If every man, woman and child in India refused to do any work that would benefit the British Empire, the British in India would be at a loss and Britain itself would gain no raw materials or profitable market. The oppressed must go along with their oppression. Why would the oppressed willingly cooperate with their oppressors? Because the oppressors have the power to inflict suffering. They can take away what small amount of resources and freedom the oppressed have obtained for themselves. They can even take away the oppressed’s lives. And so, in order to preserve the small bit that they have, the oppressed cooperate and do not demand the much greater amount of resources and freedom to which they are entitled. You know the expression that no one is more dangerous than someone with nothing left to lose? Well, the flip side is that if you give someone just a tiny amount to lose, they become a whole lot less dangerous. Read the remainder of this entry »