Re: Where have all the workers gone?

At 21:23 -0600 10/12/00, Alan Spector wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Paul Broome" <p.broome@rhbnc.ac.uk>
>
>>  >
>>
>>  there won't be a revolt, because there is hardly a proletariat left to
>revolt.
>>
>>  P.
>>
>========================================================
>
>Tell that to the garment workers in LA and NY, the underpaid, overworked
>hospital workers all over the USA, the farm workers of California, Texas,
>Florida, Ohio & Illinois, the steelworkers in my area of Gary, Indiana, the
>autoworkers, coal miners, and especially, the unemployed proletariat youth
>all over the USA.

Alan, the emphasis was on the 'hardly'. In comparison to any other 
time in history, what could be considered the proletariat makes up a 
lesser proportion of society than it has ever done. That's not to say 
the working class that still exists are not still important - far 
from it. Just that they are lesser in numbers and because of the 
trappings of modern society, are less likely to either revolt or even 
understand that they have the option of producing a revolution. Those 
engaged in non-skilled labour for example, are less likely to take to 
the streets than their class peers of even thirty or forty years ago 
- social conditions are very different, as are social controls that 
are impinged on people by social institutions.

In the UK for example, there is hardly any heavy industry compared to 
twenty or thirty years ago - we have no native heavy goods vehicle 
manufacturing; little ship building, hardly any steel mills or coal 
mines; and even car production is highly mechanised with workers (and 
I am being very generalistic here) often assuming virtually white 
collar status. What is equally important is, that has these 
industries have been replaced or modernisd, the social conditions 
that were a product of them - inferior housing, welfare conditions 
and dogmatised social structure, have largely disappeared. The 
majority of what could have been termed the proletariat twenty or 
thirty years ago now live comfortable lives in houses they own with 
personal pension plans. The state and the institutions the state 
fosters has sanistised society so the majority of society have no 
comprehension of revolution or why they would want one. Again, I'm 
being very generalistic, and I wouldn't want to detract from or 
lesser the importance of the struggles that many workers clearly DO 
care about and engage in. One has to look at the wider picture 
though, and take an holistic perspective.

>
>And of course, I haven't yet mentioned the main group, women and men from
>Mexico to Mali, India to Peru, and the demoralized millions in Eastern
>Europe.

Though it would of course be fair to include people from urban areas 
in these countries, one cannot, and should not, include peoples of 
the global South who  live in rural areas in a definition of the 
proletariat. Though they have no less worthy struggles, and 
conceptually, are recipients of the same problem (globalisation), the 
rural peasantry are distinctly different from what might be 
considered a (urban-based) proletariat.

>
>It must be nice to live in a dream world where all the happy predictions of
>the 1950's (cars that will drive themselves, dinners that will cook
>themselves, cheap, clean nuclear power, and the main problem being too much
>leisure time for the upper middle income groups....) where all those happy
>predictions of no more proletariat can co-exist with other imaginary dreams.

One of the biggest obstacles we face in changing the disparities in 
equality and equity in this world, is the fact that many people do 
not update the analytical frameworks and conceptualisations that were 
formulated in an entirely different era. That's not to say that the 
theories of Marx, Hegel, Lenin, et al are irrelevant in the modern 
world - far from it!! But when we talk of the proletariat and 
bourgeoise, it is important to view these terms in a modern context 
with relevance to the modern world, as well as in a historical 
context.

I don't know about your 'dream world', but the prophesy of the 
technocentrists of the forties and fifties have largely held to be 
true for a great many in society. My parents - my father was a lorry 
driver and my mother delivered the village post until their 
respective retirements - did not hope to own a car or even a 
telephone as teenagers (1950s). They live in the same council (state) 
housing as they did when they got married forty-odd years ago and 
could not have dreamt of the material benefits they now take for 
granted. The social conditions that exist for those of my and my 
parent's class are different today for the majority of the 
'proletariat'. Again, one has to look at the wider picture, and take 
a holistic view.

>
>Think about that as you type out a response on a computer built with the
>labor of hundreds of workers from East Asia to the Arab world to
>California....
>
>cheers,
>
>Alan Spector
>
>However, if you were remarking in sympathy and solidarity for the current
>state of demoralization of the working class and the prospects for increased
>unemployment, etc., then I take back all my sarcasm above, and apologize
>graciously, since my comments are meant to be directed at those who deny
>there is a working class, rather than those who lament the current
>disorganized, vulnerable state of the working class.
>

No need to apologise and I can handle sarcasm. Probably it is I that 
should apologise for posting such a generalist comment without 
attempting to substantiate or explain it. Yes I'm sympathetic to the 
plight of the 'working class' and hold solidarity with those from my 
roots as I always have done. I am only too aware that some kind of 
working class still exists, as I am a product of those working class 
roots. Very few from my social class get to make the transformation 
that I have. Making that transformation has allowed me to (as 
Chomsky* recently put it in an article) gain the privilege of freedom 
to think. That is something a large proportion of society do not 
realise they have, or are not allowed to realise it. That makes for a 
very different 'proletariat' in the year 2000.

Comradely, Paul.

* "..It doesn't take special brains, but it takes special privilege. 
Those people are right. You have to have special privilege, which we 
have. Its unfair,
but we've got it. To have the resources, training, time, the control over
your own life. Maybe I work a hundred hours a week, but its a hundred I
choose. That's a rare luxury. Only a tiny sector of the population can enjoy
that.."
'Propaganda and Indoctrination', By Noam Chomsky. Excerpted from an 
interview with David Barsamian: see ZNet (www.znet.org) for full 
article.

-- 

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Paul Broome
Centre for Developing Areas Research
Department of Geography
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham, Surrey, TW20 OEX, UK

Tel (Work):+44 (0)178 444 3574
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