Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 21:34:31 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: Re: M-I: marxism


        
Doug ponders my definiton of the working class (w.c):

> You seem to be defining the
>w.c. as synonymous with workers in heavy industry, who are obviously a
>declining share of the population in the First World. But what about
>service workers? Some 80% of the U.S. workforce is categorized by
>officialdom as "nonsupervisory" or "production," a share that has remained
>flat as a pancake for the last 40 years. Aren't they, or a very large
>portion of them, the working class? Aren't the women who gut chickens for
>Frank Purdue or enter data for American Airlines part of the working class?

I define the working class in the west somewhat differently.    It includes,
in my view,  those generally counted by the ILO as production workers
(non-service,  non-agricultural,  full-time).    This,  of course,  would be
generally true of those in heavy industry,  or in ancillory trades,  and
would include those subject to collective bargaining agreements,  as well as
those in the "open shop".    The problem is classifying those transitory
workers (seasonal,  service,  part-time) as part of the class.     They are
not really "slum proletariat" (lumpen),   perhaps "marginal workers" would
be a better term.     Then there are agricultural workers,  including both
farm and non-farm and those in small rural industry.    A vital factor in
feeding the post-revolutionary city.   Hardly the "proletariat" in classical
Marxian terms,  though perhaps an indispensable ally?    And what is one to
make of those 1.5 million Americans under arms,  overwhelmingly connected in
some real fashion to the working class,  *per se*?     The West lacks the
stable labor communities of many third world nations.    How does that
affect the picture?

Here,  briefly,  is a tenable scenario: At some point the physical limits of
exploitation of the consumer market are reached,  and the opportunities of
the reinforcement of capitalism from without are exhausted.    The clash
between the interests of employer and worker once more become predominant,
clearing the way for the long-delayed proletarian revolution on the Marxian
model.     The working class takes up the burden which its forebears--
through weakness,  or insouciance,  or "misleadership" or what-have-you--
could not carry in their own time,  and move forward to socialism.    Or,
alternatively,  the working class again fumbles,  leaving the way clear for
some type of authoritarian state-capitalism --Fascism?-- which then begets a
new Marxist movement of armed resistance,  wholly innocent of any lineal
connection to the reformist Left.    Could a protracted resistance,  waged
in circumstances difficult to imagine,  actually succeed and usher in the
era of world socialism on the apocalyptic ashes of true Fascism?    I will
not even attempt an answer.     

My point is that we need to cease speaking of the "working class" as some
platonic,  pre-existing idea,  and begin treating it in a --if you will--
Marxian fashion,  as a dynamic and continually evolving phenomenon whose
real history and potential is only now beginning to be realized.

Louis Godena




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