[OPE-L] debate on labor aristocracy

[Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Paul,

I don't doubt this at all, and in fact the same can be said for most rich
countries, especially places like Luxemburg but also Holland for example.
Almost everywhere and all times a section of the working population is
better paid and more privileged than the rest. This is not in dispute. What
is in dispute is (1) their class status and the influences on their
political orientation, (2) whether they are actually paid from profits made
overseas and (3) whether repatriated profits from overseas used to pay wages
are sufficient to sustain a substantial labor aristocracy by themselves.

Lenin sought to explain the lack of an anti-imperialist stance by workers in
industrialised countries by the fact that a section of the *working class*
benefited materially from their own country's imperialism, and were thus
unlikely to oppose it. It was a "share in the spoils" argument. But I could
argue in the same vein that *any* worker benefits from the job and income he
has, and is therefore unlikely to support anything that threatens his job or
income.

Jurriaan