My brief post was of an if-then natue. I did not argue one way or the other as to the probability of such a strugge arising, nor did I suggest ways in which it might arise.
Those are separate and huge questions on which I don't raise here. I merely claim that if a serious revolutionary struggle ever does rise, the demand for a radically shorrtened work week will be at the heart of its politics. I am not a "Progressive" -- that is, I do not believe that progress is built into the structure of human history. Nor do I accept voluntarist claims that the correct political leadership and theory will necessarily lead to revolutionary success. Barbarism may well triumph. One year ago almost to the day I wrote the following post on lbo-talk: ====== The fatuity of the Idea of Progress is a vital part of my attack on thinking from the perspective of the present. See: Michael L?wy, "Globalization and Internationalism: How Up-to-date is the Communist Manifesto?" Monthly Review November 1998 http://www.monthlyreview.org/1198lowy.htm A key excerpt :"In reality, it was Rosa Luxemburg's 1915 "Junius Pamphlet" (The Crisis of Social Democracy) which was, for the first time, clearly to pose the alternative socialism or barbarism as the historic choice confronting the working-class movement and the human species. It was only at that specific moment that Marxism broke radically with any linear vision of history and with any illusion of a "guaranteed" future. And it was only in the writings of Walter Benjamin that would at last be found a critique in depth, on the basis of historical materialism, of the progressivist ideologies that disarmed the German and European working-class movement by drugging it with the illusion that it could get by merely through "swimming with the current" of history." Carrol Marv Gandall wrote: > > On 2010-08-08, at 11:54 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: > > > ...shorter hours is > > probably the ONLY demand that can fuel a revolutionary struggle (whether > > one sees "revolution" as requiring an insurrction or as achievable by > > "constitutional" means. > > ======================= > > The demand for shorter hours can fuel militant - though not always > revolutionary - struggles when they are initiated by class conscious workers > in an expanding economy, as the great battles for the 8 hour day in the > heyday of the labour and socialist movement in the 19th and early 20th > centuries demonstrated. > > But the demand loses its potency and is drained of its original meaning when > workers are lacking in class consciousness and on the defensive in a stagnant > or contracting economy. It's tempting to say they are easily bamboozled by > employers who inevitably conflate reduced hours with reduced pay, but when > confronted by the prospect of losing their job or a portion of their pay, > fearful and desperate workers will almost always, however reluctantly, accept > whatever reduced hours and pay their employers offer. > > I suppose that's why I can't offhand think of any contemporary workplace > struggles in the advanced capitalist countries where workers have been > fighting for shorter hours at no loss in pay. They've been instead asking > their employers to cushion the effect of threatened layoffs through early > retirement, sweetened severance packages, job cuts by attrition, and pay and > benefit concessions. Some states provide tax relief to compensate employers > who reduce hours but maintain pay levels, but that is not the same thing as > making employers, many of whom are cash-rich and highly profitable, foot the > extra costs rather than the public. Dean Baker is a prominent proponent of > these work reduction schemes. > > But the battle seems to be joined over the urgent need for more and better > programs aimed at job creation, pitting liberal economists like Krugman, > Reich and others against the Obama administration's policies to date. Here is > Robert Shiller making the case for a New Deal type stimulus aimed at > creating labor-intensive service jobs in education, public health and safety, > urban infrastructure maintenance, youth programs, elder care, conservation, > arts and letters, and scientific research: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/business/01view.html > > The debate over further stimulus is the one which trade unionists, the > unemployed, and the insecure working masses are being most exposed to, and > I'm partial to focusing on, and intervening where possible, in battles which > are actually joined, not ones we wish were being joined. > > (As an aside, I can't think of an historical instance where a ruling class > has been overthrown, ie. had its property and power wrested away from it, by > constitutional means.) > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
