What Louis claims -- namely that Black unemployment increased in the early-mid 1960s -- can be reasonably inferred from the data. BLS data for Black employment-population ratios and unemployment rates starts in 1972, but (at least for employment-population ratios), from that point on the typical pattern is that Black ratios are *significantly* more volatile. In other words, when the ratios go up or down, they go up or down faster for Blacks than for Whites. The E/N ratios for Whites are much more stable. Now, since in the early-mid 1960s, these ratios declined, it is an almost sure bet that the decline was more dramatic for Blacks.
As far as unemployment rates, I'll just note that the 1972-2009 standard deviation of Black unemployment rates is *twice* that of Whites. If we think of this volatility as economic insecurity or systemic risk disproportionately shouldered by Black people, then the higher political militancy of Blacks even after the civil rights movement (most notable in their tremendous increase in registration and voting rates) is explained to a fair degree by these facts. In terms of the ratio of Black/White unemployment rates, things have improved (significantly) since the mid 1990s. But the differences are still huge. I looked at all these BLS series in prep for my Left Forum presentation (which was highly attended). My kick-off point was that any serious theorizing on the crisis had to start from the crisis itself in its "historical concretion" and "totality" (very Hegelian). Even if we don't meet the norm Marx enunciated in his 1859's Contribution (of pinning down the changes brought about by, say, the crisis "with the precision of the natural science"), we should at least start with some sense of the empirical dimensions of the crisis. Since the U.S. data felt the handiest to me, I thought at first of focusing on the U.S. At the end I changed my mind and decided to use my time presenting stuff about the conditions of global capital and labor pre-, during, and after the crisis. Now, in regards to the link between crisis and class struggle, we may have pulled the stick a bit too far by emphasizing that there is no mechanical association between them. Although I'd say it differently (e.g. I wouldn't drive a wedge, as Louis does, between consciousness and mass action), I agree with what Louis implicitly claims -- that *there is* a connection between crisis and political motion (its scope and depth), because crisis is disruption of business as usual and that opens up space for the struggle. This is still the first inning. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
