>Andrew- But the argument of the Darity et al. group is, I believe, that
>white workers gain absolutely from discrimination against black workers,
>even if Reich is right that they lose relatively to capitalists. We
>have to take the analysis beyond the aggregate reserve army and bring in
>the role played by job-specific reserve armies (micro labor queues) and
>the way in which white workers organizing on the basis of ethnic
>solidarity increases their bargaining power. In any case I agree with your
>conclusion (8).
I'm glad we agree, but I'm not sure the conclusion is independent of my preceding argument.
In any case, I'm not sure I understand all of what Mat writes, but I'll take a guess. I don't think anyone has denied that *specific groups* of white workers can gain absolutely from discrimination, the most obvious example being the building trades. They do so by shielding themselves off from competition in the broader labor market -- the old Dunlop/Kerr internal labor market/port of entry story.
So far, so good. But this doesn't imply that white workers *as a whole* benefit from discrimination. *All* workers in the external labor market are hurt by the internal labor market.
In a country like South Africa, to be sure, white workers are such a tiny minority that they can take all the good jobs, leaving almost no whites in the external labor market. So there, white workers as a whole have benefited absolutely from discrimination. But in a country like the US, craft unionism leaves the vast majority of white workers in the external labor market. They are hurt, not helped, by this kind of discrimination.
But, again, I may have misunderstood the point.
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.