By John M. Berry
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2003; Page E01
Nearly a quarter of a century ago, when the number of manufacturing jobs
in the United States peaked at just shy of 20 million, General Motors
Corp. provided 454,000 of them, more than any other company in America. It
took that much labor for GM assembly lines to turn out about 5 million
cars and trucks a year.
Today GM makes roughly the same number of cars and trucks, but employs
just 118,000 people as a result of a drive to become more efficient and
cut costs to survive against ferocious global competition. In the past
five years alone, GM has cut the amount of labor required to assemble a
vehicle by 30 percent, to just 24.44 hours, according to the Harbour
Report, which tracks such data for the industry.
Comment
Here is the genie that cannot be put back into the bottle. Excellent article. A bourgeois writer or so-called bourgeois writers with facts is worth a thousand Marxist ideologues. Given the incredible fall in value - which must express itself in the price form as a deflation we have never experienced, I would say a good bourgeoisie writer with facts is worth 2,345 Marxist ideologues and rising.
The reason there is a literary tradition to examine auto production as a primary indicator, is because it once was the classical home of technological innovation and implementation in the production process. Or what is the same - mass production as expanded value. Or what is the same the transition from manufacture to industry in the real world.
If I have offended anyone, which I have, in my presentations it is a weakness of the flesh and the harshness of the industrial school of learning.
The revolution is in the mode of production - the material power of the productive forces, but life is not reducible to the mode of production, but made understandable on this conceptual basis. We are talking about the culture and behavior of six billion people and the context in which it takes place.
The pace is quickening and a year from now, a good "bourgeois writer with facts" will be worth 3,400 Marxist ideologues. Talk about devaluation.
What do I know - I am the resident Stalinist and reactionary that fights to the death over real human rights. You want me on your side in a pinch. :-)
It is a weakness of the flesh.
Yea ... buddy . . . this one knocks my socks off.
Great information.
Melvin P.
