====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
On 10/05/2010 18:27, Bill Stephens wrote: > is the bureaucracy of the trade union movement in britain working class? > aren't they > middle class, part of the managerial class? > > I think this is better as an analogy than as a literal description. Union leaders have middle class incomes and a certain amount of status and social power, but they're not middle class in the usual sense - they don't exert social power over workers without also being subject to workers power themselves. The managerial middle class is in *no way* accountable to the working class, subject to democratic elections, vulnerable to no confidence motions, etc. Their decisions don't have to be ratified, and their power is derived exclusively from the capitalist class. This isn't true of union leaders and for that reason I would hesitate to classify them simply as part of the managerial middle class. At any rate, and somewhat more to the point, I wasn't solely talking about the union bureaucracy. Union members decide, ultimately, how their political fund is used; they also ultimately decide how unions vote within Labour on particular policies, leaders, etc. They have a collaborative input, from the shop floor to the conference. Of course there is room for all sorts of backroom deals, manoeuvering and sell-outs, and I certainly don't want to exaggerate the real level of democracy in trade unions, but in the *last analysis* the relationship between the Labour Party constitutes an organic connection between party and class. That this is subject to secular deterioration and may finally result in a complete severance doesn't alter the fact that in the present Labour is a party /of /the working class, based /in/ the working class. -- *Richard Seymour* Writer and blogger Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.leninology.blogspot.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/leninology Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Seymour_(writer) Book: http://www.versobooks.com/books/nopqrs/s-titles/seymour_r_the_liberal_defense_of_murder.shtml ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
