File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-02-25.170, message 1


Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 00:28:26 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Zarembka <zarembka-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu>
Subject: RE: M-I: Marxists in Unions (Was: Young Workers and Walmart)


Yoshie, These are very good questions.  I would answer somewhat along the
following lines.  Academics are objectively workers to the extent that
they do not control their means of production (I could write a lot about
this but maybe better to move forward).  However, to the extent that
faculty have tenure and/or permanent appointment and the financial
situation of the institution is "stable", in some sense, there is a
definite material base for a petty bourgeoisie.  Perhaps Eric O. Wright's
early work is useful here in introducing the notion of contradictory
locations between classes.

On the subjective score, there is a lot of "professional", not "worker"
self-perception.  But I remember one day one student reporting to me that
one (unidentified) professional had told her that what Zarembka was trying
to tell us is to see ourselves as "workers".  So somehow progress can be
made on the subjective side.

This ties into your second question.  I am fortunate in that almost all my
classes are about Marxism, socialism, history of the American working
class movement, so I have a lot of opportunity to "introduce" Marxism to
people who wouldn't otherwise be exposed.  But among faculty and staff,
well, they are more mature and they have usually been around a while and
they hear that I am a Marxist and they see my practice.  Now in one sense
I am deeply American, because before I knew about Marxism I more or less
thought Marxists are crazies (all of them).  After living in Europe I was
exposed to a good number of Marxists who definitely are not "crazies" and
I am now disabused of that.  But Americans as a whole are not.  And having
them exposed to a "normal" person (is anybody "normal"? but you know what
I mean) who is a Marxist helps prepare them for the listening process.

Since you asked, I can never forgot one year I taught a class in Marx. One
student was very interested but had never been exposed before.  Then I
left the country for a couple of years and when I returned he came to my
office and told me from experience (at that time, low-paid security guard
at the airport), "Everything you taught me is correct!"  Now I don't even
believe that about myself, but the point is that, hey, Marxism has the
best handle on the "truth" (I'll pass over Marx's or Lenin's discussion of
what is truth) and we just have to stay with it, and pleasant surprises
will come back.

When you ask about other workers, I'm not completely clear if you mean
inside the institution or outside, but there is even a struggle there
because Americans don't all the time call themselves "workers".  I sense
that that is less of a problem than, say, twenty yearas ago and I expect
it to continue to diminish under the pressure of the changing material
conditions.

As to rediscovering Marxism, that is certainly possible and even likely.
The material reality that produced Marx and Marxism is still there and in
a certain sense it is spontaneously "in the air".  So, it would be
rediscovered--but what a waste of time!

I hope this is neither less nor more than you wanted.

Paul

*************************************************************************
Paul Zarembka, supporting the  RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY  Web site at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka,  and using OS/2 Warp.
*************************************************************************


On Thu, 20 Feb 1997, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

> I have two questions for Paul.
> 
> 1) In the "academic marxism" thread, there was a question as to whether
> college teachers can be properly called workers, and as I remember, you
> unequivocally answered that we are. I think this scepticism toward college
> teachers embracing their working class status is a widely shared one, even
> beyond this list. Have you had to fight this perception (ground in real
> differences in working conditions, hours, etc.) in your union activities?
> Do your members still think that they are "professionals" rather than
> workers? Or do they share your conviction in this regard? How about other
> kinds of workers with whom you need to work together? Do they treat you as
> just "fellow workers"?
> 
> >When the time comes, I'd expect people to come to me and ask questions and
> >learn more about Marxism--from example.  In my view, that is the
> >only way to have serious Marxists--workers must come to it for themselves,
> >not because they have been preached to or because "Marxism is so obviously
> >correct how come you not get it" or whatever.
> 
> 2) I don't believe in preaching Marxism to anybody, if that means behaving
> as though I have a special access to Truth. But do workers come to Marxism
> spontaneously? When the time is right? For that to happen, isn't it
> necessary for Marxism to be at least "in the air," so to speak? I mean, if
> nobody ever heard about it, if Marxism and histories of workers' struggles
> became a forgotten tradition, how would workers rediscover them?
> 
> yoshie furuhashi
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 



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