Re: [Marxism] Labor aristocracy

[Marvin Gandall <marvgandall@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rrubinelli wrote:

> Here's a thought:  perhaps the "malleability" of the workers in Europe
> and the US to the Paddy Aplings much loved popular front, perhaps
> indeed, the adherence of the CPs to a program of popular frontism, is
> exactly the result of "bribing" the workers of advanced countries with
> "super-profits" from the colonized countries.  Perhaps the popular front
> is the political embodiment of a "labor aristocracy," and the CPs
> themselves are nothing but manifestations of the accommodation of
> workers, white workers, to imperialism.
>
> How about that?
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Joaquín Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "'Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition'"
> <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Monday, October 03, 2005 10:59 PM
> Subject: RE: [Marxism] Labor aristocracy
-----------------------------

Yes, how about that, as Mel Allen would say - my nod to the baseball chatter
on the list.

You and Bustelo certainly raise intriguing theoretical possibilities.

Are you a part of the labour aristocracy? What about Hispanic professionals
like Bustelo who live a relatively privileged existence in the imperialist
heartland? What about most everyone else on the list - labour aristocrats
all? What about the Putilov workers in Petrograd? Were the Bolsheviks the
"political embodiment" of Czarist imperialism?

Or are corrrect thinkers exempt because the labour aristocracy is a state of
mind - characterized above all by adherence to the popular front - rather
than a structural component of capitalism, albeit a questionable one? By
your logic, the workers who fought with the International Brigages in Spain
were the labour aristocrats - privileged pawns of white Western
imperialism - while the comfortable salon Bolsheviks who denounced and
scoffed at them from afar were the true proletarians.

A swing and a miss by Rubinelli.







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