Black unemployment in July 21 Left Business Observer

Mathew Forstater forstate at levy.org
Mon Aug 10 08:28:35 PDT 1998


Andrew Kliman wrote:


> I response to Mat's post of Sunday, August 09, 1998 12:06 PM.
>
> I had written:
> "It is really plausible that, given the choice between (a) making
> $30,000 while Blacks also make $30,000, or (b) making $20,000
> while Blacks make $10,000, the latter is in the interests (real
> and/or perceived) of white workers?"
>
> Mat: "But what if that is not the choice, but rather the choice
> is between (a)
> whites making 10k while Blacks also make 10k, or (b) whites make
> 12k
> while blacks make 8k? (or something like that?)"
>
> Well, IF it is a zero-sum game, then one group benefits
> absolutely at the expense of the other. But that's the big if.
> In subsequent posts, you clarify that you don't believe in the
> zero-sum game (wages fund, fixed pie, or whatever) doctrine, but
> it seems to me that your two choices here presuppose it.

I don't believe the pie has to be fixed, but in fact it pretty much is. Or maybe the pie as a whole has grown, but workers' share hasn't (even shrunk). But, yes, I made an error in using an example of both cases adding up to 20. We could do it in terms of rates of increase or shares or whatever, but my point was simply that your example may not be the only way to think about it. And, in fact, there is a big difference between a potentially growing pie and an actually growing pie, and the relative shares of the pie, even if it is growing. Whose real wages are growing? How far will the Fed let unemployment fall?

Also, (and I apologize for implying that no one on the list had looked at any of the literature I cited, of course some have), Botwinick's analysis does outline that there are limits to wages in capitalism. This is key to his analysis.


> Is the underlying issue here that you don't think it is
> politically feasible for both white and Black working people to
> improve their conditions of life and labor, so that instead you
> advocate redistributive policies?

No. I think we have to go beyond the old simplistic idea that everything is explained in terms of capitalist divide-and-conquer. It is more complex than that, and I think that understanding that some white workers may have a real material interest in racism, males have a real material interest in gender discrimination, is important in the struggle for the better society we all want. But I don't attribute this simplistic view to you. Our disagreement may be more semantic than anything else. And it may also concern short-term vs. long-term strategies, and relatedly, issues that are relevant within the present socioeconomic and institutional structure of modern capitalism vs. those that regard possible alternatives. We need to think about both (all).


> Mat: "Also, relative wages do matter--absolutely--if you get
> what i mean. it's about power relations and hierarchy, it
> involves capitalist control over workers but also power relations
> within the working class."
>
> Well, no, I don't really get what you mean. But of course
> relative wages matter, as do racism and discrimination. To
> question the claim that white workers benefit from racial
> discrimination in absolute terms is not make racism and
> discrimination any less repugnant.

Right, and it appears you did get what I meant (I think?). There are hierarchies within the working class, and "race" has been an imporant factor mediating one's place in the hierarchy. The working class is not homogeneous (again I am not attributing this view to you, but rather it is one that is out there.) And the working class actively participates in these processes.


> Mat: "if we can imagine another socioeconomic system in which
> everyone is absolutely better off, and that is what we use as our
> benchmark, then we can never employ the distinction between
> absolute and relative within the present system. everything is
> relative, then."
>
> My point does not reduce to the notion that white workers don't
> gain absolutely because something better is possible. Rather,
> the issue is whether racism and disrimination HINDER, not only
> the realization of a new human society, but also the fight for
> improvements in people's lives, in the meantime, within the
> present system. If so, then both white working people and Blacks
> lose due to racism and discrimination, though not to the same
> extent.
>

Yes. But I don't see this as inconsistent with my view. Within the present system, some white workers are absolutely better off because of discrimination than they would be without that discrimination, within the present system. But in another system it is conceivable that everyone could be better off.


> Mat: "for example, if Blacks sufffer higher unemployment rates
> due to discrimination, and whites therefore have a lower chance
> of being unemployed ...."
>
> I do not think the "therefore" follows. You're thinking in
> static (or zero-sum) terms. What about the possibility that
> discrimination and racism hinder the coalescence of white working
> people with Blacks, that they get fewer concessions from the
> ruling class (if not the shit kicked out of them, as has been
> happening for 2 decades) such as job creation, and that whites
> therefore have a higher chance of being unemployed, not relative
> to Blacks, but relative to what would be the case were there less
> discrimination and racism?

In the present system it is zero sum. Until the end of politically enforced unemployment and endogenous reproduction of the reserve army. Capitalism reproduces a reserve army of unemployed. It is part of the reproduction of capitalism. Same with differential wages, different 'sectors' Unless there is some set of policies that can change this, or unless the system is changed, then someone's got to be in the reserve army, etc. As Darity argues, eliminating one form of discrimination will just change the composition of the reserve army, not eliminate the reserve army.

That's all for now.

Thanks,

Mat


> Mat: "of course, according to the way Drewk has framed the
> issue, everyone would be better off if there were full employment
> for all. true enough."
>
> I'm glad we agree, but it is not I who has framed the issue in
> this way. This is the way the issue has been framed for decades.
>
> Mat: "so in that sense we can never say that someone or group is
> fairing absolutely better--even if millions of white workers are
> employed instead of unemployed, have higher instead of lower
> wages, have better instead of worse jobs and working conditions,
> have more instead of less job security, all due to
> discrimination-- unless there is no "better" imaginable. isn't
> there a problem here with the way we are using "absolute" and
> "relative"?"
>
> No, my position is not that if something better is imaginable,
> then it is impossible that whites gain absolutely. This is a
> perfectly plausible hypothesis, and I'm happy to entertain it.
> There are lots of things that I would consider to be evidence
> that supports it; for instance, inverse relationships between the
> movements in the two groups' wages, unemployment rates, poverty
> rates, and so forth. But I haven't seen such evidence (I
> couldn't find any evidence, nor even any claim that whites gain
> absolutely, in _Persistent Inequalities_).
>
> There *is* overwhelming evidence of *discrimination* and labor
> market *segmentation*, but by itself such evidence proves only
> that Blacks suffer, not that whites benefit. A zero-sum
> postulate is needed to move from evidence of discrimination to
> the conclusion that white workers gain absolutely.


> Andrew ("Drewk") Kliman Home:
> Dept. of Social Sciences 60 W. 76th St., #4E
> Pace University New York, NY 10023
> Pleasantville, NY 10570
> (914) 773-3951 Andrew_Kliman at msn.com
>
> "... the *practice* of philosophy is itself *theoretical.* It is
> the *critique* that measures the individual existence by the
> essence, the
> particular reality by the Idea." -- K.M.



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