Re: [Marxism] Forwarded from Anthony (reply to Julio Huato)/bribery and Lenin

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

The bourgeoisie of an imperialist "Great" Power can economically bribe the
upper strata of "its" workers by spending on this a hundred million or so francs
a year, for its superprofits most likely amount to about a thousand million.
And how this little sop is divided among the labour ministers, "labour
representatives" (remember Engels 's splendid analysis of the term), labour 
members
of War Industries Committees, [8] labour officials, workers belonging to the
narrow craft unions, office employees, etc., etc., is a secondary question.

Lenin http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm

I considered myself once a member of the labor aristocracy, making a wage
between $90K and $150,000. The issue of the labor aristocracy has been debated
since Marx and Engels and in fact is a question of the size of ones paycheck and
social position as a strata of the working class.

The issue of the relative bribery of the working class as a whole in the
imperial centers is not identical to the material reality of the existence of 
the
labor aristocracy.

Lenin continues:

"On the economic basis referred to above, the political institutions of
modern capitalism -- press, parliament associations, congresses etc. - have 
created
political privileges and sops for the respectful, meek, reformist and
patriotic office employees and workers, corresponding to the economic 
privileges and
sops. Lucrative an soft jobs in the government or on the war industries
committees, in parliament and on diverse committees, on the editorial staffs of
"respectable", legally published newspapers or on the management councils of no
less respectable and "bourgeois law-abiding" trade unions -- this is the bait by
which the imperialist bourgeoisie attracts and rewards the representatives
and supporters of the "bourgeois labour parties". " (IBID)

Lenin gets more interesting:

"On the one hand, there is the tendency of the bourgeoisie and the
opportunists to convert a handful of very rich and privileged nations into 
"eternal"
parasites on the body of the rest of mankind, to "rest on the laurels" of the
exploitation of Negroes, Indians, etc., keeping them in subjection with the aid
of the excellent weapons of extermination provided by modern militarism. On the
other hand, there is the tendency of the masses, who are more oppressed than
before and who bear the whole brunt of imperialist wars, to cast off this yoke
and to overthrow the bourgeoisie. It is in the struggle between these two
tendencies that the history of the labour movement will now inevitably develop.
For the first tendency is not accidental; it is "substantiated" economically.
In all countries the bourgeoisie has already begotten, fostered and secured for
itself "bourgeois labour parties" of social-chauvinists." (Same source as
above)

I, of course uphold the political conception of the bribery of the working
class in the imperial centers relative to their historical counterparts and the
majority of the population in their former colonies.

Within the multinational state of the American Union this bribery is
institutionalized as the relative privilege of the Anglo-American people in
relationship to the African Americans, Indians, Mexicans, etc. This bribery is 
expressed
as regional wage differentials and social privileges, as well as these same
divisions within historically distinct regions. Privilege is expressed on every
level and most certainly housing patterns.

However, I have come to believe that more than simply the concept of bribery
and the labor aristocracy is involved in examining the lack of formation of
class consciousness of the workers and why there has been no sustained fight
against bourgeois property.

Nevertheless, in our history white chauvinism was the form that imperial
bribery took to the Anglo-American people that was an economic block to the 
unity
of the working class. It was in fact profitable for white workers and
hooligans to burn churches, lynch blacks, meet appeals for justice with an
indescribable bloody violence and enforce by terror segregation. Segregation 
meant
institutionalizing a social position of a people.

The curve of history that creates uneven development is not peculiar to
capitalism. The word imperial means the export of something and this 
"something" is
always reducible to military force founded on more advanced means of
production. It is this military force - in the last instance, that 
institutionalize
the relative privilege of the conquering peoples.

Lenin of course detail this privilege all the way down to the factory floor
and who gets promoted and become foremen and straw bosses.

Then there is the question of bribery and privilege in respects to the Woman
Factor. Wage differentials here appear as gender.

Melvin P.

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