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John Reimann
In reply to Richard Fidler:
All too many socialists define the issue as being the building of a
"party of the left" or of a "mass socialist party". That is the
completely wrong way of looking at the matter. The issue simply is that
all political parties are based on one class or another. The Republicans
and Democrats are capitalist parties. The working class has no party of
its own. Again, to emphasize: What is needed is a *party based on the
working class.* That is the way to look at the matter.
John Reimann wrote
In reply to Richard Fidler:
All too many socialists define the issue as being the building of a
"party of the left" or of a "mass socialist party". That is the
completely wrong way of looking at the matter. The issue simply is that
all political parties are based on one class or another. The Republicans
and Democrats are capitalist parties. The working class has no party of
its own. Again, to emphasize: What is needed is a *party based on the
working class.* That is the way to look at the matter.
John Reimann
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I suggest that we continue to do basic homework on specifics, as
contradictions mount. One thing we badly need is a further analysis of
class, one that does not simply set up static Weberian categories or
ideal types in the manner of what Erik Olin Wright has done in the past,
but that examines in all their fluidity and tenuous nature the present
and likely emerging dominant categories of work, and their relationship
to the law of value and the extraction of surplus. Among other things,
that might help to establish which broader fractions of the working
class can be counted on as being in the forefront, and in it for the
distance. and therefore which might be reliable allies on which to grow
and spread. Also, the ways in which those categories of labor have
changed, evolved and flowed with changes in the nature of the capitalist
processes of production, and in what ways they are presently doing so.
And above all probably, closer analysis of the global picture; better
understanding of the stratagems, or unintended consequences, of the
movement of profit-seeking-at-any-price transnational capital in
relation to the working class, and how we counteract capital's immense
power to keep the working class, regional, vertical and horizontal
divisions of labor, invidious distinctions nationally and tribally,
divided and off-balance.
Mentioned in the business literature I have seen as principal developing
areas of new employment are health-care and health-related forms of
work, including care of the aging and bio-tech. Another featured
prominently is warehouse work, with burgeoning online commerce and
aspects of industrial expansion. As to health-care related work, of
course, much of it is spread widely and thinly, somewhat as is
traditional housework and care in the home, but by no means all, and
that deserves close attention. The other, warehouse work, may grow and
become more significant as a powerful category of work. But I think of
the analogous case of what has happened to dockworkers and the
composition of labor in shipping, where the docks are so automated that
now a few workers suffice to press buttons and read charts. Does the
same not easily apply to warehouse work?
This is a neglected area, from my reading, and a much-needed one. Unless
we better survey and understand the lay of the land in the working class
on a deeper level, I don't see how anyone can very well construct
reliable models for action and strategy.
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