Ernie : As someone who has taught US Labor History, my view nonetheless is that either labor unions re-invent themselves or the movement is done for --- except for government employees and maybe a handful of select industries. The model of "oppressed labor" which was certainly true enough at times in the past, and in a variety of industries, simply no longer holds. It is hopelessly obsolete. In America, that is, not in some other countries, say China or Viet Nam, but, of course, as useful as unions might be in such places, no free unions are even lawful. In the USA there is a rationale for non-labor unions, for example, homeowners who unite against usurious banks, consumers who unite against usurious credit card firms, cable subscribers who unite against TV providers who collude to sell packages and disallow al la carte subscriptions ( thus keeping service costly ), and you name it. All of which would be useful, and instead of strikes for leverage the ultimate threat would be class action lawsuits. But there usually is so little sense of community in this area that the problems to overcome are large. But this remains possible. Think of the AARP as a model for what could be done with other populations. For that matter, think of the NRA. The irony here is that the opportunity for organization is on the Right, far more than on the Left. The natural constituency for Leftist organizing, a proletariat, hardly exists any more. Where it does, the relevant populations are usually hopelessly uninformed or fragmented by cultural differences. Which the Left aggravates through relentless pressure to get people to conform to Left Coast and East coast social values. Marxism is relevant insofar as labor adds value to goods and, of course, services consist of labor ( plus intellectual capital, worker skills, and accumulated knowledge ). So there is a golden opportunity to revisit this aspect of the Left, freed from Marx's insistence that the only standard of value is labor. But I don't know of anyone who is doing any such thing, at least not in America. As for a Marxist solution to the economic crisis, that is a pure pipe dream. Not that today's neo-Commies won't seek exactly this, including neo-Communists Lite in the Democratic Party, but if such talk survives November I'd be mightily surprised. Seems to me it is only plausible now because so many Democrats are in denial about their party's grim prospects November probably won't be another 1994, probably it will only see about a 25 seat GOP gain in the House and a max of 8 in the Senate, maybe more like 5, 6, or 7. But even so, that will take most of the steam out of the Marxian revival brought about in the wake of 2008. As if a number of WH policies hasn't done part of that job already. For all the talk of "socialist Obama," about which the point sometimes has validity, about this I think Ron Paul is more right than wrong, namely, that BHO is more of a plutocrat than anything else. That is, what just about everyone is getting from this administration is, from all perspectives, not what anyone expected. Billy ===================================================== In a message dated 4/21/2010 2:03:01 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi again, On Apr 21, 2010, at 1:46 PM, Dr. Ernie Prabhakar wrote: > The Long Downturn | NewAmerica.net > finally paying attention... Here's another version covering much the same ground, in the form of an i nterview. Brenner calls the crisis Marxian; don't know if that mean he is himself a Marxist, though the rest of the article would support that view. It would explain why most links on Google are of him being savaged by (other)? socialists.... http://brechtforum.org/robert-p-brenner-crisis > JEONG: Many assert that the current crisis is a typical 'Minsky crisis' not a Marxian one, arguing that that the financial speculation-bubble-bust has played the central role in this crisis. How would you respond? > > BRENNER: I don’t think it's helpful to counter-pose in that way the real and financial aspects of the crisis. As I emphasized, it is a Marxian crisis, in that it finds its roots in a long term fall and failure to recover of the rate of profit, which is the fundamental source of the extended slowdown of capital accumulation right into the present. He does at least offer one potential (admittedly dramatic) solution, though even he is ambivalent about it working: > To have a significant effect on the economy, the Obama administration will likely have to contemplate a huge wave of direct or indirect government investment, in effect a form of state capitalism. To actually accomplish this however would require overcoming enormous political and economic obstacles. The U.S. political culture is enormously hostile to state enterprise. At the same time, the level of expenditure and state indebtedness that would be required could threaten the dollar. Until now, East Asian governments have been happy to fund US external and government deficits, in order to sustain U.S. consumption and their own exports. But, with the crisis overtaking even China, these governments may lose the capacity to finance U.S. deficits, especially as they grow to unprecedented size. The truly terrifying prospect of a run on the dollar looms in the background. Sobering stuff. I'd be tempted to admire him, but the only solution he seems to place faith in is Marxist revolution -- not a war of ideas, but of power: > Thus there is a big opening for left ideas. The problem is that there is very little organization of working people, let alone, any political expression. So one can say there is this very big opportunity created by the change in the political environment, or the ideological climate, but that by itself is not going to provide a progressive outcome. So, again, the top priority for progressives--for any left activists--where they should be active is in trying to revive the organizations of working people. Without the re-creation of working class power, little progressive will be possible, and the only way to recreate that power is by way of mobilization for direct action. Only through working people taking action, collectively and en masse, will they be able to create the organization and amass the power necessary to provide the social basis, so to speak, for a transformation of their own consciousness, for political radicalization. Having better organized and radically conscious working people isn't going to magically make communism more efficient and less corrupt than it was in the Soviet Union. And maybe his Marxist bias is biasing his analysis and arguments. But darned if I know where... -- Ernie P. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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