Louis Proyect wrote: > Unfortunately, knowing that Kerry is inimical to the interests of > working people does not stop the bureaucracy from backing the DP. ----------------------------------- This raises the question of the relationship between the labour base and the labour bureaucracy. The conventional wisdom on the left, expressed by Proyect, is that there is a sharp separation between the two, with the bureacracy seen as an alien force which has imposed an alien program on the unions.
In fact, the local and national labour full-timers I've met have seemed a lot less alien to the working class than left-wing intellectuals who regularly denounce them. For the most part, with the exception perhaps of the research, legal, and communications departments, they've risen organically from within the working class -- elected or appointed to union positions after having been rank-and-file activists and strike leaders. Sure, some have been corrupted and have literally sold out their "members" in exhange for a few perks from management and many betray the same social prejudices as their members, but in most cases the conservatism of union leaders usually stems from an often quite realistic assessment of the balance of forces between their organizations and the employers, rather than any inherent venality or spinelessness. Their compromises and retreats are not infrequently reluctant and in contradiction to their original intent to engage in confrontation. In most cases, they are able to win the support of their members at ratification and other meetings because they reflect the cautious mood and instincts of their base, and they often do this in debate with more militant oppositionists who are present in every major local. Kerry and the DP and labour leaderships are "inimical to the interests of working people", if you solely define their interests, as Proyect and other disaffected intellectuals seem to, in terms of the overthrow of capitalism, and see the workers' continued support for the system and the pro-capitalist parties as a product of "false consciousness" rather than the (historically unexpected) material improvement in their working and living conditions. Within this context, the workers, especially those in trade unions, perceive the Democrats, with some reason, as more sympathetic to the Republicans in terms of collective bargaining rights, minimum wage and employment standards, unemployment relief, social programs, and other economic and social issues of concern to them. Left intellectuals, whose living conditions and interests may be very different, may not think this counts for much and that the Democrats are only only marginally better than the Republicans in terms of the big picture, but to workers struggling to maintain their living standards, these issues are of more than marginal importance, and it is their own experience of the two parties -- as much as the exhortations of the union leaders -- which explains their stubborn refusal to buy the argument that the Democrats are "inimical to the interests of working people." I think there will first have to be a major change in the way most people, especially in the cities, experience the system and the two parties for them to even begin to entertain that notion. Marv Gandall
