[A-List] Romantizing working classes - about workers, logic and their thinki

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<<MP: The section of the working class with the least connection to  capital
is the key that is fundamental to social revolution during this era of
history. This runs against the entire grain of the classical Marxism of the
Third
and Second International.>>

>>CB: The proletariat is not just the industrial proletariat. The
proletariat is all waged labor, including socalled service workers, or
however one wants
to term the sections of the working class "furthest" from
"industry".Capital is not big industrial machines. It is the
wage-labor/capital
relationship.<<


MP: The issue I spoke of was not the section of workers "furthest" from
"industry," but the poorest workers with the least connection to bourgeois
production and that section of the working class whose spontaneous motion
compels
it to batter the state. Least connection is an economic concept that  means
the
least economically stable section of the working class. Sorry I did  not
make
this clear. Least connection . . . means least connection.

********************

>>>Furthermore, with  the running away from the U.S. national territory of
so much of industry, of  the actual points of industrial production, there
may
arise in the remaining  industrial proletariat of the U.S. a new
dissatisfaction with the system and  militancy ,in that they are being
impoverished by the process. It may not  riseup ,but it shouldn't be shunned
in our efforts to do political education.  <<<

MP: There might arise . . . might arise . . .

^^^^^
CB; Is there an echo in here ?

^^^

MP: militancy in those workers remaining somewhere . . . or what I call and
in  actual fact happens to be, the most economically stable sector of the
working  class? Interesting proposition considering many of us have observed
this  "remaining" section for the past 50 years.

^^^
CB; You are also the one who puts so much emphasis on the revolution in the
forces of production of today.  What you have observed for 50 years might be
changing.

^^^^^^

Below is my  understanding of your meaning.

A). the remaining industrial  workers in the US might experience a
dissatisfaction and become militant as the  result of American jobs being
shipped overseas.

B). The remaining  industrial American workers are being impoverished "by
the process" of shipping  American jobs overseas ("running away from the
U.S. national territory" )

C). These remaining industrial workers who might rise up and who  are being
impoverished as the result of their jobs being moved overseas should  not be
shunned in our efforts to win the working class as a whole, over to the
cause of communism; or revolution or the spontaneous demands for economic
communism, that arises from the most poverty stricken section of American
society.

What of the workers - say in auto, who actually are  losing their jobs, for
a complex of reasons of which plant movement outside our  national borders
has not been the primary reason during the past 48 years?

^^^^
CB: They might get more active too.
^^^


Take  Detroit . . . your
home town. Has plant movement outside U.S. national borders  been the
primary reason for job loss in Metropolitan Detroit and through the  great
state of Michigan? Especially amongst autoworkers during . . . say the  past
seventy years? Or the steel workers or the old rubber workers plants that
once lined Jefferson Ave? Or the hospital workers?

^^^^^
CB; Yea, pretty much,if you say Detroit. Some of the movement of plants from
Detroit has been to the surrounding suburbs.

^^^^

The workers who  actually lose their jobs are an important element in the
scenario you outline.  Where do these workers go . . . the real people that
lose and are losing their  jobs? As a general rule these workers who are
losing their real job become  poorer. The remaining workers - those who do
not lose
their jobs, are always in  contact, conflict and contest with the bourgeois
power - the bourgeoisie, by the  fact of their relationship. This
relationship between the actively employed  workers and the bourgeois power
directly drives
capital through all quantitative  boundaries of the industrial system in all
its phases.

^^^^^
CB: What do you mean by quantitaive boundaries ?

^^^^^^^

The poorest workers and  mass of unemployed indirectly drives the same
process because they determine the  bottom measure of value or the actual
material cost of reproduction of the  working class as a living entity.

I am not speaking of categories  as such but a living process, but there is
no other way to describe a living  process except by isolating its various
components and their connection or  interactivity. The question is not "who
is the
most important in the working  class" or who is "furthest" away from
"industry" or an abstract speculation  about what a particular group of
workers might do.

What section of  the working class is in active combat with the state?

^^^^^
CB; What do you mean by "combat" ? Not armed struggle, do you ?

^^^^^^

I believe as  I have stated several times that your proposition is just
thinly disguised  national chauvinism and the imperial outlook and ideology
of the economically  most stable section of the working class.

^^^^
CB: No, they aren't national chauvinism or an imperial outlook. That you
committing slander. You say it but, you make no good supporting argument.

^^^^^

The move of industry  overseas is not the cause - implied, for the growing
poverty within the national  borders of America - (the U.S. national
territory). Nor can the movement of  industry overseas be isolated as the
roots cause of the downward pressure on  wages and the actual fall of wages
within "the U.S. national territory."

^^^^^
CB; It's a cause of loss of jobs. There are other causes.

^^^^^

May I ask why the move of industry outside "the U.S. national  territory" is
even important to the working class of America as a whole?   Seriously . . .
why is the move of industry outside the US national borders  important to
our working class as a whole? This is a valid question in as much  as you
later speak of the unity of the working class as a whole. Why is the move
of industry
outside the US national borders important to our working class as a  whole?

^^^^^
CB; Because it causes members of the working class to lose jobs. One for all
and all for one. An injury to one is an injury to all. Solidarity forever.

^^^^^^

The movement of American industry overseas and the increase  of poverty in
America is actually a specific logic that cannot be explained as  "running
away from the U.S. national territory".

^^^^
CB: Not explain. "Movement of industry overseas" is identical with "running
away from the U.S. national territory." They are synonymous statements.

^^^^^^


This so called "running way"  mimics the
cry of 30 years ago when a section of our trade union movement raised  the
banner against the "runaway shop." Industry, more often than not, trade
unions or closed shops, moved from the Northwest to South to escape the high
wages of the unionized North and Midwest and also for other important
reasons.  "Closed
shop" meant that the individual had to join the union as a condition of
employment in the shop or plant.

Did these workers in the North  and Midwest get angry? Yes! Did they become
militant? Yes, . . . I think so,  especially the workers at the old Bud
Wheel, as they watched their work move  South of the Mason Dixon line. There
is a logic to what we have faced since the  1930s.

Under Roosevelt our country became faced with a Europe in  ruins and a pent
up hunger for commodities by "the civilized world working  class."
Internally two historically evolved factions of the bourgeoisie were in
combat, with "New
York money" and industrial capital par excellence needing to  develop an
industrial infrastructure in the South. The need was to gear America  up as
the premier industrial producer on earth. The tractor and the  mechanization
of agriculture was already underway. The result would set at least  10 - 15
million
people in motion. The key to the economic and political  stability of
America as a global power was industrial expansion in the South and
Southwest. This meant developing a modern industrial infrastructure.

Sections of the trade unions raised the banner of the runaway shop  and
sought to develop various strategies to combat what was called "the Southern
strategy" of the bourgeoisie.

My point is that you are not really  speaking of the working class in
America but the industrial workers of the North  and specially what was
called the "Rustbowl" and the acknowledged decay of the  industrial classes
in the 1980s and 1990s. The working class in the South and  Southwest is
basically one - no more than one and a half, generations removed  from
agriculture. They have not
lost jobs from the standpoint of the scale that  is the transition from
agriculture to industry.

The move of  industry was much more dynamic and complex than my quickie
description and also  included industry moves to Canada as a lower wage
producer, especially in  respects to auto and its related industries. Later
there was NAFTA at a time  when China was beefing up its industrial capacity
on the basis of very low wages  as compared with the historical wages
structure of the
American North and  Midwest, or rather China was beefing up its industrial
capacity on the basis of  the cost of reproduction of its own working and
laboring class.

This concept of "the running away from the U.S. national territory  of so
much of industry," - even if it was true and it is not as formulated,  means
exactly what? That those workers still working "might" get angry or do
something?

^^^^^
CB; Yes, might. So, we don't exclude them from our efforts to raise class
consciousness.
^^^^^

There is no need for any of us to speculate as such about what a  group of
workers "might" do.

^^^
CB; Sure, here we do so speculate. It's fine and dandy around here.

^^^^^^^


 Those workers permanently eliminated from say auto  and
steel and before that rubber have long ago moved into other sections of the
working class and more often than not, the lower paid section.

In  other words I reject in total how the classical Marxian presentation of
the  question facing our modern working class is posed and looked at. This
is so  because this outlook is no more than political syndicalism and
imperial  chauvinist ideology masked as classical Marxism.

^^^^^^
CB: As you so often tdo you are here just namecalling without supporting
argumentation, when you say "imperial chauvinist ideology". Give a reason
why you think it's "imperial chauvinist ideology", and then I'll  respond.

As to syndicalism, you'll have to define what you mean. Seems you mean
something like trade unionism pure and simple, i.e. ecnomiism, but it's not
clear to me what you mean.


^^^^^^^

I believe a  deeper and more meaningful approach to what is happening in
America, resides in  how Marx describes the behavior of classes and section
of classes that decay in  the face of the advance of industry.

^^^^^^
CB: I thought you said you are not a Marxist, or you are not putting forth a
Marxist argument.

^^^^^



A section of Marxism
does not acknowledge  or proceed from a point of view that the industrial
form of the working class is  in advanced decay in the imperial centers on
earth.

^^^^^
CB: When you say "imperial centers" are you referring to national
territories ?


^^^^^^^

Classes decay  in the face of the advance of industry and there is nothing
new about this  process.

^^^^^
CB: Do you subscribe to Lenin's definition of classes ?

^^^^^^



 In its barest abstraction, we are talking about
thousands of years,  that together reveal the revolutionizing of the
productive forces and the rise  and fall of classes and their historically
specific form.

^^^^^
CB: Correction. _You_ are talking about thousands of years and so forth. I'm
not talking about thousands of years on this.

^^^^^^^

If we  believe, as I see and have experienced it, that the industrial form
of the  working class is in advanced decay,

^^^^^
CB: You mean the industrial form of the working class in the U.S. , right ?
In terms of the whole world, there's more mass produced than ever.

^^^^^^


 and not as the result of the move of
 industry abroad, but rather as the result of the technological revolution,

^^^^
CB: Manufacture, i.e. hands on the means of production is being reduced as
the result of the development of technology. That has been true since the
industrial revolution.  Machines replaced human hands and arms. See Marx's
analysis of Modern Industry in _Capital_Vol. I. Industry is not in decay.
The hands and arms of robots are replacing those of humans. So,  the role of
"manual" labor or human hands is lessened,but the role of machines is
expanded. Robots are machines. Machines define industry. So increase in
robots is an increase, not decrease in industry. It is _super_industrial. It
is a decrease in manufacture, i.e. the role of human hands in production.

^^^^^^


then  one might seek to apply Marx's approach and description of a decaying
class and  classes to our society.

^^^^^^
CB: What part of Marx are you talking about ?

^^^^^6


 Moving industry abroad will at best shrink the
industrial classes as production, in a given region of earth but not cause
their  decay and transformation into something else.

^^^^
CB: Agree. Total industrial production on earth is increased from previous
periods. In U.S. , manufacturing jobs are increased.  In some other
countries, manufacturing  jobs have increased.

^^^^

In other words the  classical Marxian movement in America, or rather the
political syndicalists  gravitating towards Marxism, have not unraveled and
described the behavior of  the industrial working class itself as it decays
in the face of the advance of  industry. Everyone in our society - and every
place else on earth, knows and  will tell you we are undergoing a profound
revolution
in the technological  regime that is changing the character of work.

^^^^
CB: What's your measure that demonstrates that it is more profound than
previous scientific and technological revolutions, as with fossil fuels,
electricity, assembly line, automation ?

^^^^^^^

The industrial form  of the working class decays in the face of the advance
of industry and he who  attaches their wagon and theory of social revolution
to any class, including the  industrial classes, that are in decay in the
face of the advance of industry, is  in for a rude wakening to what I
consider the
most elementary facts of life in  America and the most elementary approach
to social life deployed by Karl Marx  himself.

^^^^^
CB: I thought you said you are not using Marx's theory ?

^^^^^^

  My general premise does not really
require a Marxian (without  quotes) understanding but rather the power of
observation and ability to look at  what is taking place and not lie to ones
eyes and ears.

^^^^
CB: It is not possible for an individual to see it all with her eyes. One
has to use science and abstraction to understand it all.

^^^^^^^

Our  industrial working class is in decay and this is not the result of "the
running  away from the U.S. national territory of so much of industry."

^^^^
CB: Yes, some of it is.

^^^^^^

 Nor is
"the  running away from the U.S. national territory of so much of industry"
the  salient feature of the antagonism that has surfaced in our society.

^^^^^
CB: It is a salient feature. Not only that, the greater scattering and
mobility  of points of industrial production is made possible by and the
result of the very revolution in the science and technology of communication
and transportation through computer aided design and manufacture.  The
industrial corporations are able to place plants far apart from each other
geographically, territorially because of the specific revolution in
communication and transportation that you refer to, something I have said
about 20 times in response to your repetition of the same themes about 200
times

^^^^^^

It is true that some remaining workers who have watched others  lose their
jobs due to plant movement overseas . . . might . . . become militant  and
then what?

^^^
CB: Then they might take up a task of tranforming society. Just as much
likely as the other sectors of the working class might.

^^^^^^

Demand that these jobs be returned to  U.S. national  territory to
stabilize their employment? Or to bring back the workers who lost  their
jobs?

^^^^^
CB: Yes, or build new plants and provide jobs for these workers.

^^^^^^^

What I have told the remaining workers who watch job loss due to
rationalization of production, even when they did not get militant, is that
we  need a system that protects the very poorest by providing socially
necessary  means of life even if people have no money. Many of the first
response is  generally
"what about me? I have to work for these same socially necessary means  of
life and I do not think that is fair."

On this basis the struggle to educate the workers take place.

Melvin P.