re: labour aristocracy

[Jon Flanders <72763.2240@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 >> One qusetion; could all the members of the working class, world
 wide, drive new cars every three years? If the answer is no, then
 you have to face the fact that some members of the working class
 - the working class being defined as those who depend on selling
 their labour power - are going to have to lessen their current
 rate of consumption. Either that or you are going to have to
 redifine who belongs to the working class. <<R. Hickman

 Jon Flanders:

  As a card-carrying member of the Labour Aristocrats, railroad branch, I
would like to comment on this discussion.

  In our railroad yard, we have acres of new cars out of Detroit and Japan,
headed for all points. It is becoming more and more galling to those of us who
work next to them to realize that our chances of buying one grow less and less
each year.



  The way a few of us have obtained new vehicles is through winning the
railroad lottery, ie. suing after an injury. I know of an electrician who cut
off his thumb and won enough to buy a snazzy Camaro.

   Of course, most US workers are aristocrats in the sense that we drive cars
at all. And it will take a few more years of high mileage driving to wake up
the class to their comradeship with workers of the third world.
 Will my Olds make it to 200,000 miles? Will thousands of US workers march
next May Day in Mexico City? Stay tuned.

  E-mail from: Jonathan E. Flanders, 19-Jun-1996




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