Re: [Marxism] Trumka on race and the elections

[Aaron Aarons <aaron@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From: "S. Artesian" <sartesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 10:10:38 -0400
>
>Yeah, I know a little bit about DRUM and LRBW having worked in Detroit for
>awhile, including at Cadillac Fleetwood.  Saw "Finally Got The News" when it
>was first made, before general release.
>
>But you fail to answer the question--where is this outcry by workers for
>restoring their portion of the empire?

To the extent that middle-strata and, especially, upper-strata, U.S. workers 
defend their levels of consumption, that is exactly what they're doing, 
regardless of how they conceptualize it.

>Your statements do more than imply that any time any workers take any action
>for higher wages, job preservation, better working conditions, they are
>really just demanding a bigger part of the "loot."

When it's a matter of higher wages for the middle and upper strata of the U.S. 
working class, yes.

>So opposing outsourcing is what?  Reactionary?

It can be, depending on how it's done. If it's put in terms of opposition to 
"exporting American jobs", it certainly is.

>Opposing NAFTA and CAFTA is what, isolationism?

Of course, revolutionaries and anti-imperialists are against NAFTA and CAFTA. 
But much of the opposition in the U.S. is done in a way that supports the 
chauvinism of U.S. workers. The struggle against those FTA's, if it is to 
advance the world struggle against capitalism/imperialism, must be conducted 
from the viewpoint of solidarity with the workers and oppressed of the 
neo-colonies, and certainly not in defense of U.S. workers against foreign 
competition.

>And opposing the war in Iraq isn't what?  sincere enough? because it takes
>place after the US has not been able to achieve control of the battlefield?

I'm happy with any actions taken that interfere with the ability of the U.S. to 
make war in Iraq or anywhere else. I'd cheer attacks on U.S. installations like 
the attack on the U.S.S. Cole even if they were carried out by people like 
Osama bin Laden. Doesn't mean I consider Osama or his supporters to be 
potential revolutionaries.

>How do you expect class consciousness to evolve?  Is it supposed to spring
>full blown from the forehead of Marx?  Pristine and unmarked by the terms of
>its very origin?

My essential point is that, regardless of their consciousness of themselves, 
the majority of waged and, especially, salaried workers in the U.S. are NOT 
part of the world proletariat. So I'm not sure WHAT class consciousness one can 
expect to evolve in that stratum.

>Doesn't happen that way.  Didn't happen that way in Russia.  In 1914 when
>the Bolsheviks agitated against Russian participation in WW 1, they were
>chased out of the factories by Russian workers, and if caught, beaten, and
>sometimes to death.
>
>If this, however, is your perspective, then there is very little difference
>between your "position" and that of the old/new left Weatherman (and
>ultimately Black Panther) position, that discards the working class
>completely as anything but a counterrevolutionary artifact.

I think that's a caricature of the positions of the Weathermen and Panther 
positions, although they did tend in that direction. (I was myself overly 
critical of the Weatermen in those days, being a recent ex-Spartacist and, 
briefly, just a bit under the influence of 'Lyn Marcus' and his early Labor 
Committee.) One of the best pieces of writings in this regard is ex-Weather 
Underground member David Gilbert's 'Looking at the White Working Class 
Historically', <http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/profiles/lwwch.html>. (See 
also the prison interview with Gilbert on the Weather Underground DVD.)

>(LRBW had a certain, and big, problem with the Panthers, who were posturing
>about "bombing factories" since the LRBW actually worked in those factories.

>In all I've seen and heard about the Panthers, and it's a lot, this is the 
>first time I've ever heard that they were talking about bombing factories. 
>It's likely that somebody in the Panthers would have said something like that 
>at some time, but that doesn't justify saying that "the Panthers" 'were 
>posturing
about "bombing factories"'!

>I remember one discussion with the Panthers

You surely mean "some Panthers" rather than "the Panthers"

>who were arguing that black
>workers were "privileged" and part of the imperialist network of oppression.
>That was a hoot, all right.  Think that was around  the same time as the Ca.
>Panthers were urging everyone to vote for Dellums, who of course isn't an
>agent for the imperialist network).

And many leftists who considered even white workers to be revolutionary also 
were urging everyone to vote for Dellums.

>If you think that US "super-exploitation" of less developed, imperialized,
>countries "make[s] their (our) high levels of material consumption
>possible," then you have a big task ahead of you-- namely showing exactly
>how that exploitation abroad gets transformed into wages, benefits, etc for
>domestic workers; showing that that exploitation abroad underpins the entrie
>structure of US capitalism; showing that that exploitation is in fact
>super-exploitation, creating profits at a mass and rate above those
>available in the US or for US investments in other advanced countries; and
>showing why in fact, with the greater penetration of US capital into less
>advanced countries since the 1970s, material standards of wages, benefits,
>numbers employed in industry, poverty levels have deteriorated.

On the contrary, if you DON'T think it's imperialism that "make[s] their (our) 
high levels of material consumption possible," then you have a big task ahead 
of you-- namely showing exactly
how workers in the U.S. manage to consume 5, 10 or 20 times as much resources 
and labor product per capita as do workers in the imperialized countries who 
work about as much as or more than their U.S. counterparts.

>Joaquin, in the discussion about the DP,  argued that we really have to come
>to grips with Lenin's formulations in Imperialism and how that has affected
>the entire class.  I think he, Joaquin is right, so I would hope those who
>think Imperialism has bribed an entire class would do some work to help
>those of us who think Lenin was wrong.

I, for one, don't think "bribery" is the proper concept. It implies that 
workers in general are part of a single class whose members owe loyalty to the 
class as a whole, and that some of them are "bribed" to betray that class. 
That's no more the case than that middle class people in, say, Bolivia, are 
"bribed" to betray the Bolivian workers and peasants. It's a matter of more 
privileged people defending their privileges against those below them in the 
global class/caste heirarchy, particularly if there's no alternative on the 
horizon that offers them a "better" life. And that will only be possible with 
U.S. white workers when either they are proletarianized by the evolution of the 
world economy or they develop a consciousness that rejects the "American dream" 
of a better dinner table on the Titanic.

I really like your writings on Bolivia, comrade Artesian. But that's a case 
where the exploited working class and peasantry actually are a majority of the 
population.

 - Aaron

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