On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 11:54 AM, Charles wrote: > > Transportation is counted as a service in GDP. Regardless of how few > workers it may take, those workers have the capacity to cripple rail > transport and long distance trucking. That's why the capitalist state > passes especially harsh laws against them going on strike, why Biden > quickly moved to shut down a rail strike, etc... "dispersed working class" > is also a working class with connections among themselves that reach > farther and faster than before
The industrial working class was faced with a greater degree of state repression during its rise. Workers attempting to organize and strike were frequently shot, lynched, and jailed as well as being fired and blacklisted. This did not prevent them, however, in conditions of illegally from shutting down the production and distribution of goods and forcing concessions from employers and the state which improved their working and living conditions. These improvements, rather than the further mass immiseration anticipated by Marxism, is what stabilized capitalism and led to an historic decline in working class militancy . We don't yet know whether the accelerating introduction of AI and humanoid robots as in China will revive effective mass self-organization, if not in the workplace than outside of it, to replace lost jobs and income. Or whether such a process would be furthered because workers now have " connections among themselves that reach farther and faster than before" through social media. The evidence to date suggests that the advent of digital technology has strengthened the power of the state and employers and lessened rather than improved the possibilities for collective activity and organization, but this may have less to do with the medium than with the structural factors which have contributed to widespread anomie and the current low level of working class political consciousness and combativity. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#41841): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/41841 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119000131/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
