Re: Immigration laws and multiple labor markets (was: Re: SocialImperialism[O' Lincoln

[loupaulsen@xxxxxxxxxxx]

DMS observed,

> And regarding poultry processing workers in North Carolina, you can see
> similar treatment inflicted upon the "indigenous" workers,
> African-American women, by management.

Yes, but I said as much in my original post, as I recall.  The general 
phenomenon is the creation of multiple labor markets by force.  Within the US 
it takes the form of segregation by "race" and gender, the exploitation of the 
undocumented, "sheltered workshops" for the disabled, prison industries, 
"workfare", and so on.  Barriers to immigration and emigration extend this 
phenomenon internationally.

As you have observed, pretty much all of this discussion about whether US 
workers benefit from the exploitation of workers in the colonies reproduces the 
discussion which began decades ago about whether WHITE US workers benefit from 
the exploitation of workers of oppressed nationalities (in the internal 
colonies).  For example, you have the work of Omali Yeshitela, the leading 
theorist of the Afrikan People's Socialist Party, who argues that white 
residents of the US are not merely "bourgeoisified", we are ACTUALLY PART OF 
THE BOURGEOISIE because we share in the surplus value extracted from Black 
workers.  And feminists have raised the same argument against men.

Contrary to this, Marxists like Al Szymanski tried to prove that 'racism is bad 
for white workers'.  Szymanski produced a very unconvincing article for a 
sociology journal which attempted to show that white workers' wages were lower 
in states where there was "more racism" (I won't go into how he tried to 
quantify the level of racism, suffice it to say it was one of the unconvincing 
parts).  Well, I just don't think it is that simple.  (In any case, racism is 
(from our perspective) bad for white workers because it paralyzes the class 
struggle, the struggle for socialism.  I don't think we are called upon to 
demonstrate that racism would be bad for white workers even under the condition 
of permanent capitalism, a condition which we do not presume to exist.)

I don't believe that white workers, male workers, documented US residents, 
workers in the US, etc. either are part of the bourgeoisie, or are not 
exploited, or do not have a stake in the struggle for socialism.  But I think 
it is *obvious* that we (I am all those things personally) are -privileged- 
with respect to other groups of workers in this world, or, if you would prefer, 
that we do not suffer from the particular -oppressions- that other groups of 
workers endure, and these privileges or oppressions are not just economic 
processes in a free global marketplace, they are ENFORCED.

If I had my copy of Malcolm X's speeches handy I would start quoting him about 
the house slave and the field slave.  A relatively privileged slave is still a 
slave, but from the perspective of the slave these distinctions are not 
unimportant.  When the master's house catches fire, he wrote, more or less, the 
house slave says "OUR house is on fire!"  That's what privilege tends to do to 
you.  A very large fraction of our whole task here in the US is to deprogram 
this kind of response.

(I am not sure that the dispute about whether the value of the privileges comes 
out of the surplus value extracted from the super-exploited workers of the 
colonies, external or internal, has practical importance.  If someone thinks 
that it does, please let me know why.)

(That is: suppose that a white citizen of the US makes $160 per day.  Suppose 
that a worker in the colonies gets $16 per day for comparable work.  Marxist A 
argues that some of the $160 is produced by the underpaid worker in the 
colonies.  Marxist B argues that the US worker produces $300 per day in value, 
say, and is exploited, but is just not exploited AS MUCH as the worker in the 
colonies, who produces $100 per day in value and only gets 16% of it.  Marxist 
C argues that the US worker is exploited MORE because the worker in the 
colonies produces only $25 per day in value, so the rate of exploitation in the 
US is 300/160 and the rate of exploitation in the colonies is 'only' 25/16.)

(I don't think it's an easy job to figure out who is right, mainly because I 
don't think it's easy to apportion the total value of the commodity that is 
produced among the individual workers who produced it, PARTICULARLY if the 
workers are not in the same labor market.  My sympathies are with Marxist C, 
but I can't prove that I'm right.  But even if I decided that I agreed with 
Marxist C,  I don't think this would make my job of winning the US worker to 
socialism particularly easy.  The workers don't sit down with economic charts 
and base their political activity on the result of some set of calculations.)


Lou Paulsen


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