Re: [Pen-l] limits on the working week [was: Half-baked Keynes

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Again, sorry about the slow reply. I really have to drop this LIFO
approach to e-mail.

me:
>> The slogan [about limiting work hours] did not drop from the sky, not was it innate in Marx's (or Dilke's or Chapman's or Steward's) mind. Instead, it was the labor movement that spawned the slogan for workweek reduction. Then, the slogan helped unite the movement. I think it's a mistake to think that somehow the slogan alone will help revive the movement.<<

Sandwichman responded:
> Well, no. it was the demand for shorter work time that spawned the labor movement! <

Gee, nothing else did this? there were no authoritarian and unsafe
work conditions or inadequate wages? there was no deskilling of labor?
no lock-outs and Pinkerton goons? there was no destruction of
traditional ways of life and safety nets? The focus on the demand for
shorter work-time seems one-dimensional.

> It is true that resurrecting the slogan alone will not revive the labor movement. <

good, we agree.

> However, consciousness of the historical role of the slogan is essential if there is to be any hope of reviving the movement.<

yes, but remember that the conditions right now are not the same as
when the 40-hour week slogan arose. To revive the labor movement, I'd
recommend concrete analysis of current concrete conditions (to dredge
up an old phrase).

>Below is a passage from Raya Dunayevskaya's the American Roots of Marxism that I just stumbled across this morning. I quote it not  because I am an adherent to her thought or because I got my ideas from it. I'm not and I didn't. I quote it because of convergence -- she came to very similar conclusions as me regarding Capital -- and what is vital within it -- following an entirely different course of inquiry.<

I've left the quote from Dunayevskaya out (since I've read it before
somewhere). My question: why was limiting the working-day so
unimportant to "News & Letters," the group she led and inspired?
-- 
Jim Devine /  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange
days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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