To continue my discussion, I lived in Puerto Rico for three years and
worked as an Analista de Planificacion for the Planning Board of the
government of Puerto Rico. One of my assignments was to develop
methodological approaches (adductive rather than a priori) for
qualitatively and quantitatively assessing the linkages and leakages
(from final demand, tax base etc) of aspects of the underground
economy (drugs, prostitution and bolitos).
In Puerto Rico, with about 4.2 million people on the island, about
2/3 of the population is receiving some form of "pagos
transferencias" (transfer payments). The typical places where
prostitution goes on are well known. About 80% of the prostitutes are
non-Puerto Rican (Columbianas, Dominicanas, Haitians) and of course
there are males also involved in prostitution with the percentage who
are non-Puerto Rican being even higher.
We were interested in such things as how many women or males
typically live together (average six per dwelling), how long they
typically stay on the island (average 8 months), how much they
typically make during their stay (average $36,000), how much of their
earnings are repatriated (average 80%), how much of their earnings
are taken by pimps or other "overhead" (average 60%) and many other
questions.
I had funds available to go out and pay women for their time so they
would not be losing money; they all knew I wasn't a cop and would
never turn them in (some who had become friends would tell others
that I would never turn them in or assist the police in any way). I
did not find these women and men seeing themselves as "self-
valorizing" themselves or practicing a form of "self-determination"
or "empowered" in any meaningful way. Sure some would mock the tricks
and take delite in getting over on them but there was always a look
of sadness and expression of marginal pleasure out of a situation of
desperation and hopelessness. In all cases, I would give my number
and say, if you ever need any help with the bureaucracy (for access
to services) or any help I am able to give please call--and many did.
(Often academics do studies with no inclination or care as to what
happens to the "subjects").
Prostitutes by virtue of their conditions of work, atomization
(atomization is consciously designed to keep them powerless and
unorganized) and isolation, attitudes (many were extremely anti-
communist and anti-socialist eventhough they sometimes had a hard
time articulating what it was about communism and socialism they
opposed) typically belong more in the lumpenproletariat than in the
classical proletariat. Of course there are many in the
lumpenproletariat who have progressive sympathies and have played
progressive roles while there are also some in the proletariat who
are reactionary and have inhibited progressive struggles. I think
that much of Franz Fanon's work helped to break down some of the anti-
lumpenproletariat biases and stereotypes common in the left and that
he was right on in suggesting that the potentially progressive
sympathies and roles played among some in the lumpenproletariat have
been grossly underestimated.
On the other hand, it was not because of petit-bourgeois morality
that the Chinese and Cuban revolutions de jure abolished prostitution
as one of the first official acts and worked to abolish it de facto.
They understood that prostitution is about much more than the
"exchange of use of genitals"; it is about commodification, which
under capitalism is more about degradation and depreciation than
"self-valorization" and "empowerment"; it can cause all sorts of
problems in families (imagine the husband goes home and after giving
his wife STDs from a visit to a prostitute says "But honey, I was
only aiding in the empowerment and self-valorization of a fellow
worker who just happens to be selling a different kind of product but
essentially doing what I do at work"), for the families of
prostitutes as well as prostitutes themselves (drug addiction,
pimps). Further, in the Chinese and Cuban revolutions, there was an
understanding based on bloody experience that revolution requires
dedication, focus, discipline, sacrifice, compromise, resoluteness
etc and that these pathetic and marginal and individualistic
(read "atomistic") attempts at "liberation and empowerment" generally
lead nowhere except to even more marginalization and powerlessness
and alienation.
BTW what is this stuff about "atomistic Marxism"? On the inscription
on Marx's grave at Highgate it says: "The Philosophers have only
interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to
change it." "Workers of all countries unite" It doesn't say "workers
of all countries do your own individualistic and atomistic thing and
cut the best deal for yourself and your own limited and jaundiced
notions of self-empowerment and self-valorization and screw your
oppressors in marginal individualistic and self-destructive ways.
Elements of the lumpenproletariat, petit-bourgoeis, anmd even
nominally progressive bourgeoisie may play and have played a role in
revolution. But I wouldn't want to build or participate in a whole
movement based on rationalizing some of the worst tendencies and
ideas found there.
Jim Craven
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