Abandoning the Working Class or Abandoning Context? (was Re: [Marxism] "Unions" & "Workers" are not the same)

["M. Junaid Alam" <mjunaidalam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Only now have I seen Josh Saxe's post. Two things: one, as I'm very busy
with LH and schoolwork for the next few days, I cannot respond fully;
and two, I can see this is going to become a circular argument - I asked
for someone to provide evidence for assertion A, which has not been
forthcoming, and then someone else asks me to provide evidence for
assertion B, but assertion B was that assertion A was wrong in the first
place.

Let me put down some general thoughts directed at no one person in
particular.

From the outset I should clarify one thing: I do not count myself as
one of those dogmatic Marxists who reads 1848 Marx and thinks that
everything to be said on the subject of the working-class has been
explained and the case is closed. Any serious student of history will
note that the composition and development of the working-class in the
last 150 years has been *very* different from what Marx predicted. That
workers revolution did *not* occur in the advanced countries, that
socialist revolutions broke out - always-  in *underdeveloped* societies
- is not in dispute. Nor is it in dispute that 'milder socialism', ie .
Social Democracy, not revolution, ran its course in Western Europe, that
a social pact between labor and capital was cultivated there and in
America, that 'absolute immiseration' or 'pauperization' did not occur.
Nor is it in dispute that in the post-WWII period a massive economic
boom resulted in absolute increases in wages, living standards, and
wealth for a vast majority of Americans - at least, serious Marxists
like Baran and Sweezy did not dispute this.

Obviously, these realities have to have consequences for how we
understand the world from a Marxist viewpoint. You can't just cling to
old slogans and formulas in the face of historical realities. That would
be patently absurd. I think it would be a severe error, therefore, to
ignore the value of Marxist dependency theory, which explains how
advanced countries have accumulated capital by exploiting the poorer
countries and have depressed the level of development in the poorer
countries by orienting the latter's economies to serve the needs of core
capital. Needless to say this is not some fiction drawn up in an
isolated academic building - anyone who has read any history of US
intervention in the Carribean (La Faber's 'Inevitable Revolutions'), or
just the relatively short historical period of US imperialism under the
guise of anti-Communism (Chomsky's 'Hegemony or Survival'), to take but
two instances, knows full well that imperialist countries have waged
ruthless economic, political, and military war of incalculable
proportions to destroy Third World societies over and over again.

So against this backdrop, it strikes me as absurd that some individuals
will strike tough-man poses, as if there is no such thing as
imperialism, and nationalism, that workers all live on some magical
planet on more or less equal terms and absent of any national contexts,
or have not fought against each other on the international stage in
which one group of workers has almost always marched under the banner of
Capital, massacred the other group of workers, and brought the loot
home, so to speak. That these poses are struck with such sense of
authority - as if there is something strange in recognizing the
undeniable fact that the West has disproportionately - and collectively
- benefited under capitalism by oppressing non-Western societies - is
equally absurd. Imperialism has been the safety valve of capitalism. The
West - not just 2 or 3 big CEOs - has enriched itself by underdeveloping
other societies. Full stop. Anyone straining under illusions to the
contrary should read up on some history, is the mildest way I can put
it, starting with Cocker's 'Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Gold'.

Frankly it's hard to see how any Marxist, save the most doctrinaire,
explains how capitalism has survived, adapted and even thrived for this
long, how revolution has been co-opted or averted, how a salaried
middle-class has been propped up, how 'New Deals' were reached, how
class struggle was contained, without referring to the international,
global context in which specifically Western capital has sucked the
natural and human capital out from other parts of the globe to mollify a
significant section of Western workers: that is after all a major part
of the history of the past 500 years. Otherwise, if none of this is
true, then you must accept two conclusions: one, the vast majority of
people in L. America, Asia, and Africa are inherently stupid because
they cannot reproduce the kinds of progress achieved in the West, and
the progress of capitalism in the West is an entirely self-sustaining
dynamic unrelated to waging wars, pillaging resources, engineering
coups, or anything else outside of the West.

So this is the historical reality, the context, or framework, I think,
in which we have to look at the important questions of the present day.
To pose the question of who "abandoned" whom between the workers and the
leftist activists in America in the 60's and 70's outside this context
reduces everything to a melodramatic, pseudo-moralistic, mudslinging in
which one side "betrayed" the other. This kind of tripe is suitable for
90210, not serious Marxist analysis. I think it would be hasty to say
one side "failed" the other, and in fact the very framing of the
question is probably seriously flawed. But beyond this point:  if you
assume the leftist activists failed the workers, well, what does that
actually mean? That the workers need the activists to show them the
light? That without such guidance the workers can't revolt - and that
with it - they would? So those who hurl this charge - in essence, that
the left activists areelitist and out of touch - seem to hold the role
of such activists in higher regard and importance than even the
supposedly self-important activists themselves!

What about the notion that the workers failed the activists? Well, the
real question is, did the workers fail themselves? Who really cares if
they failed the activists? Insofar as the workers' union leadership -
their direct, elected leaders - obviously thought that they had a pretty
good deal going on with the bosses, the workers were only acting in
their own short-term interests in purging elements too far left to be
acceptable within the framework of the social pact. Exceptions
notwithstanding, you're not going to run out and stake your life on
revolution to overthrow a system if within that system you're making
good money in a stable job with benefits and feel your future is more or
less secure.

So for all those reasons, I say it's self-flaggelation - and
retrospective at that - to dump on the efforts of the left activists of
that period. They did what they could, and dumping on that and dissing
it to no end isn't going to make today's workers a hair more
revolutionary for the effort. It's not just a question of what activists
"saw" - as if we are speaking of the perceptions of some aliens who
totally misread the realities of the  American working class  - it's a
question of what was, and how people - both workers and left activists -
reacted to really-existing circumstances.

Now, when anyone jumps into discussion of the present-day based on the
past, I think this is a serious error to graft old perceptions,
circumstances, and realities onto the new ad hoc. Obviously the social
pact honeymoon is over. The economic comeuppance of China and India in
crucial economic sectors, and the Islamist backlash to Zionism and
imperialism, show once again that quite apart from the boogeyman of
Communism, new demons are at Capital's doorstep. There will be an
intense struggle to marshal American workers behind their rulers , quite
possibly more ugly, intense, and brutal than at any other time since
World War II, because the basis of US political and economic privilges
and hegemony is being seriously undermined. No doubt certain right-wing
populists will be conjured up for the purpose of turning scared and
insecure whites against immigrants and foreigners and Arabs as
scapegoats, and the new propaganda and ideological assaults are already
well underway.

The question for Marxists here is as always: what is to be done?
Needless to say I have no great wisdom or magical insight as to what
must be done, but I am quite sure of what is to be completely avoided:
Certainly, there is no use in hiding behind the kind of intellectual and
political cowardice and laziness which produces positions such as "the
workers are all bought off and we can do nothing" as well as "the
workers are proletarian heroes and we are all too bought off to save
them." No such melodramatics are necessary. All that is necessary is an
honest, sober, and serious engagement and understanding of what the
really-existing circumstances, openings, and potentialities are, and the
confidence and conviction in socialist ideals required to make good use
of them. Anyone committed to this task, in whatever field or capacity
open to him, taking on whatever aspect or angle available, is doing all
that can be asked and should be encouraged.

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