Re: [A-List] Romantizing working classes - about workers, logic and their thi...

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

You asked the following question which allows e to clarify my rejection of
what you call "the Marxist menaing or classical Marxist presentations of
things,  American brand.

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

MP: I never stated such and wish you would present the quote but I most
certainly not the kind of Marxist of the CPUSA or various Trotskyites trends. I
would call myself a communist and generally reject almost everything in what
some call Western Marxism. You of course understand that I have basically
disagreed with 90% of all your political projects you insists are Marxists and
this is all right because we can always work together on anything if given the
opportunity.


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

Reply

I trust that my meaning of class was sufficent clear to understandhow I
deploy it. I hope your question as to the meaning of a quantitative boundary in
the development of the industrial system was answered enough for an
understanding of its deployment. Henry C.K.'s article outlining the industry  advance,
starting in the 1700s and pinpointing specific inventions, like the  steam
engine and electricity their impact on men and forms of classes was  extremely
enlightening.  One could easily speak of Mr. Daimler's gasoline  powered engine
in the late 1880s as revolutionizing moving vehicles, which were  first
produced in France in the 1700s as war machines.

The hardest  thing for communists and most individual to do is to pinpoint
their moment in  history. I have been struggling with this for about 20 years in
a conscious way,  while trying to grasp the totality of the technological
advance on the basis of  partial application of this revolutionary technology.

One turning  point in my life experience was the 1997 Strike against Chrysler
Corporation by  the Mound Road Engine plant. This strike was the longest to
hit Chrysler since  the 1950s and was waged by Local 51. Simply because I
worked there for 30 years,  knew virtually all of the 1865 workers personally, knew
all the union  representatives and the entire union structure up to the
President of the  Chrysler section of the union (we shared poker buddies in common
and Jack  appointed my brother to the International staff of the UAW);
understood the  issues at stake and addressed a large group of our member during the
vote to  accept or reject the company's offer, does not mean I "really"
understood  anything taking place or necessarily understood the behavior of these
workers,  the union and management.

I believed then as now that I had a  reasonable grasp of the situation and
the probable behavior of our members, who  were about 50% women. The reason this
thread is called romanticizing the working  class and I responded to it, is
because many of my friends and comrades have a  romantic notion of the
industrial workers in large scale industry and workers  like the auto workers.

Our strike was over job loss. Specifically  the company wanted to move the
drive shaft division out of our plant and out of  the corporation and turn this
work over to Dana and TRW and American Gear and  Axle (located where the old
Lynch Road Assemble plant was located and close to  Eldon Gear and Axle. The
company stated clearly that it was getting out of the  drive shaft business. We
had ended up making drive shafts when Detroit Universal  Division (DUD) in
Dearborn closed in the wake of Chrysler failing to meet its  obligations in the
bond market in 1979. A group of workers from DUD - where my  brother was Chief
Steward, were relocated to our plant along with prop (drive)  shaft
production.

Before and during the strike we were militant  and through the strike
remained militant. Local 51 had a militant tradition due  in large part to some CPUSA
old timers and a large Trotskyite contingent.  Further, an old section of
union leaders were aligned with International  Financial Secretary Emile Mazy who
had an old time Trotskyite orientation. By  1997 most of the Trotskyists were
no longer in our Local Union due to layoff and  plant closing, but I always
enjoyed working with them on real issues. Actually,  I enjoyed drinking with
them and playing cards and hanging out because most were  really great people.

I guess what I am trying to say is that 1997  was a turning point in not just
the Chrysler system but the character of  industrial strikes in our country -
although I will not be able to authenticate  this conclusion, on the basis of
strike action, until the next wave of  strikes hit the industry. Los Angels
1992 was enough to clarify an important  political juncture in our history for
me, as was Watts 1965 and Detroit 1967.  (Speaking of quantitative boundaries,
a boundary in the development of the  spontaneous uprising which the
classical Marxist never write about and totally  misunderstand was Birmingham 1963,
which I write about two to three times a  year. Here the steel workers were
compelled into combat with the state and  leaped outside the relationship that is
the unity and strife of the social power  called capital. Liberty City in the
1980s expressed a certain quantitative  boundary in relationship to Los Angels
1992 and then Battle Creek 2001 - in your  home state of Michigan was
basically misunderstood by the classical Marxist as  was Cincinnati 2000. Much of
this misunderstanding is simply white chauvinism  that assigns the white workers
"important" and "history making" change).

Anyway  . . . we were pretty isolated in 1997, meaning that we had not  won
over through the Chrysler Council the support of the other union reps and
their workers in various individual plants. For various reasons the union
structure itself worked against us and this was bound up with what we call  "business
unionism."

There was no possibility of this strike  action exceeding the boundary of the
connection and mediation that takes place  between labor and capital. The
struggle between the two basic classes of a  social system is always at all times
a struggle to reform the system in one or  the others favor and hence the
meaning of reform. Reform is not a bad word by  any means because it is the
actual environment of a section of the working  class. Reform cannot be transformed
into revolution or the reform movement  cannot be transformed into a
revolutionary movement on the basis of  consciousness. It is simply not possible and
violates the law of quality. It is  not possible to transform a distinct
quality - (in this case labor and capital  which is born in unity and strife), into
another quality - (revolution) on the  basis of class consciousness or any
other form of consciousness.

This proposition is at the base of my disagreement with political
syndicalism which is not trade unionism pure and simple. The communists who  assign the
"the workers with their hands on production" - (meaning in reality  the
economically most stable section of the working class connected and in  "heavy
industry" also organized into trade unions), do so based on ideology and  not an
examination of American history or world history for that matter. This of
course does not mean anyone ignore any section of the working class or other
classes for that matter.

Now the workers in heavy industry most  certainly play a role in the
unfolding revolution. The issue is not what they  "might do" or even their militancy
but rather, what are the conditions under  which these workers become fully
subject to communist propaganda and an  effective revolutionary force? Political
syndicalism presupposes that these  workers in heavy industry are a
revolutionary force by virtue of their  connection to the bourgeoisie through their
employment and this is not true at  all. Marx describes this process when speaking
about the fight for the eight  hour day.

These workers in heavy industry, (who I have spent a  life time with and as -
and was actually elected by a group to be the highest  representative in the
plant; which might indicate their poor choice and severe  need of
enlightenment), become realy effective when they exceed the boundary of  the struggle
between labor and capital and are compelled into combat with the  state.

When Marx speak of the fight for the eight hour day he is  describing a fight
- political and sometimes military combat with the state as  the legislative
organ in society. In other words the struggle between labor and  capital can
only pass to antagonism - (more accurately the contradiction between  labor and
capital is replaced by antagonism,) when the workers leap ouside of  their
engagment with their employer and directly confront the state.

This is the simplest explanation why it is imperative that modern  communist
understand why we have to win the workers over to the cause of  communism or
the communist section of the working class, because its demands for  socially
necessary living requirements is a demand directed against the state  and not a
single or given set of employers.

Political  syndicalism disguised as Marxism or classical Marxism rejects this
line of march  because its ideological base is the romantic notion of the
industrial workers  connected to - with its hands, on the basis instruments of
production. Our eyes  should forever and always be focused on that section of
the working class in  combat with the state and whose social logic compels it to
spontaneously engage  the state as state. Here is the definition of combat
you asked for, although any  decent dictionary will give you a good definition
of the word combat.

Capital contains its own self mediation between labor and capital  because
capital is a social relations erected on the unify and strife we call  worker
and capitalist. In other words, every single partial gain of the workers  in
their unending combat with the employers is predicated upon them returning to
work to implement the gains won. Trade Unions simply institutionalize this
relationship and make it more simply for representatives of one side or the  other
to negotiate. Here is the definition of trade unionism pure and simple and
why it is different from political syndicalism.

Perhaps this will clarify my particular vision and why I reject  classical
American Marxism and basically 99% of Western Marxism.

Again these insights are mind and I do not claim that represent any sizable
section of American Marxism. I am actually aware of the vision of American
Marxism or what you at times call THE MARXIST POSITION OR MARXIST PROPOSITION.

No thanks, I'll have none of it.


Melvin P.