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We've been down this road before. The mechanisms that are usually identified for the "workers sharing in the feast of capitalism" don't, upon close examination, exist as mechanisms of sharing for the workers. Lenin's own work on imperialism is very problematic-- a charitable characterizaton-- to say the least, based on a certain lack of categorization of data where data is provided, a lack of data to support certain key arguments, and the fact that the historical origin of trusts and syndicates neither created a monopoly, nor is the result of imperialism, but is the outgrowth of the "long deflation" of the 1873-1898 period which saw tremendous increases in labor productivity in the more developed countries; huge increases in the "fixed capital" component of industrial production and, during that same period, DECLINES in nominal wages, although gains in purchasing power due to greater declines in food products, rents and clothing, based on that increased productivity. The gains the workers experienced during and after that long deflation had nothing to do with superprofits utilized as "bribes." I don't think we can comprehend the lack of a working class social movement in the US post WW2 [certainly working class social movements took the field after WW2 in Europe, Asia, and Latin America] without acknowledging coincidentally that the black struggle is, and always has been, about the emancipation of black labor; that the struggle of women was propelled by the large increases of women's participation in the social labor force. Nor should we leave out the wildcat, and non-wildcat, strike movement that peaked pretty much in 1974. And the response of the bourgeoisie and a response worldwide-- has been to break up concentrations of workers, inside the factories [productivity circles, production teams etc], outside the factories by decentralizing, fragmenting production into smaller physical plants dispersed over greater territories [favored tactic of the Italian bourgeoisie after the Turin strikes], outsourcing, and years of breaking unions, firing workers. So if no social movement of the working class exists in the US-- yet, and it doesn't, that hasn't stopped the bourgeoisie from pre-empting the possibility of that development. Just as the civil rights struggle was the appearance of a struggle whose essence is the emancipation of black labor, the current battle of immigrant rights appears as a battle over identity, but is in essence nothing but another pre-emptive attack of capital upon the most vulnerable of the workers. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joaquín Bustelo" <[email protected]> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
