[Marxism] RE: Labor aristocracy

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can't speak for Rrubinelli, but am I a part of the labor aristocracy? I
sure am; and when I'm not, I am constrained by my relation to it. As for
Hispanic professionals, they are partly in the labor aristocracy, partly out
of it. Listmembers? Depends what country they are from, what their
occupation is, what colour of skin they have, what their politics are, and
so on. By and large, I'd say most marxmail members are part of it. Labor
aristocracy theory does not say that the most well-off sections of the
working class must be reactionary: such an economistic characature leaves
history, politics, and the balance of class forces unexamined.

Membership of the labor aristocracy is partly a state of mind, like any
political position. If, for example, as Chris Rock has said, a busboy thinks
to himself, I wouldn't switch places with even a rich black man,  instead
'I'm gonna ride this white thing out and see where it takes me', he is on
the side of the American labor aristocracy, despite his current penurious
state.

Many members of the labor aristocracy can, of course, switch sides, like any
aristocrat. Michael Bakunin gave up his Russian aristocratic position to
fight for anarchism (or something). The middle class teenagers and
professionals of the West German 'economic miracle' in the 1960s formed the
core of the Red Army Faction, Baader-Meinhof group.

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