From: Charlie <[email protected]>
Carrol Cox wrote: > We have had nearly four decades of an ever-intensifying assault on workers' income: wages, benefits, public and private pensions, and so forth. < Yes, that is the key fact to explain in order to sort out the way forward. The cause of this assault, especially in contrast to decades preceding it, can't be greed; it is around in inexhaustible supply and insatiable throughout capitalism. --Four decades is too long for a cyclical explanation. --It's not the weakness of trade unions or the collaboration of union leaders. Subjective explanations do not withstand much scrutiny. In addition, the assault has spread to western Europe. ^^^^ CB: This is a factor in that this status and posture of the US trade union movement allowed the capitalist counter-reform movement get going and keep going without opposition. This is not a subjective element, because class collaborationist consciousness translates into class collaborationist objective conditions. It is only getting to Europe now because the trade unions had more struggle consciousness. Another factor is anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism, which were behind the de-radicalization and class collaborationist policies of trade unions. ^^^^ --The cause is not international capital movement to new pools of low-wage labor. Globalization in this sense became a significant factor only two decades ago. ^^^^^ CB: Plant closings started to become a problem in the late 1970's. Even if this was not a cause 40 years ago, it became another cause starting 30 years ago. The fall of the Soviet Union became another cause 20 years ago. It opened up a lot of new markets for imperialism. ^^^^^ Historical materialism, if it worth anything, is good for discovering the change in capitalism that it cannot develop its way out of. That's where the theoretical effort belongs. Charles Andrews No Rich, No Poor ^^^^^^^ CB: Capitalism did just have a whopper of a world financial crisis and big recession. Government austerity programs aren't going to be a way to a boom. Isn't this a typical crisis of over and under ? _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
