I’m well aware of the social and cultural diversity within the class, Tony, and the vastly different working conditions, pay, and benefits which separate what are often misleadingly described as the most skilled workers at the top from ostensibly the least skilled at the bottom, usually oppressed women and non-whites. I've seen up close the conditions of nurses aides in Toronto, many of them Haitian immigrants, and at the other extreme, unionized relatively well off professional employees in Ottawa straddling the class line. The gap separating the “labour aristocracy” from the “labouring poor” is not new. What is new is 1) that the gap has narrowed as the college educated have become increasingly proletarianized since the turn of the century and 2) they are a much higher and rising proportion of the workforce than were the declining craft unionists who were displaced a century ago.
In relation to the DSA, your point is "that an organization does not truly represent the working class just because most members earn wages. The key question is whether it connects to all parts of the class, especially those with the least power, influence, and job security”. I nowhere suggested that the DSA represents the entirety of the class, although from what I’ve seen of its material and the successful Mamdani campaign, it clearly aspires to broaden its base. Historically, the only parties which have "connected to all parts of the class” have been the mass social democratic and Communist parties. You may be bending the stick back too far in suggesting that I am doing so in the other direction. As you know, I agree with much of what you post here. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42436): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42436 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120177484/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
