But the working class has the exact opposite ultimate materials interest of the bourgeoisie ( despite the obvious opportunist and limited interest of workers with relative advantages over other workers, as discussed earlier on this list). This makes the racism and male chauvinism of workers qualitatively different than that of the bourgeoisie. It is a profound confusion and betrayal of class self-interest ( whereas when the bourgeosie do it , it is in their class self-interest).
The worldwide revolution blocking opportunism of the working classes in the advanced capitalist countries, especially their betteroff sections, is worthy of some name equivalent to updated "labor aristocracy." The blame for the delay in overthrowing worldwide capitalism is much more on these working classes than on the Soviet Union , its Communist Party and working class.
Charles Brown
>>> Jim heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> 05/31 5:56 AM >>>
In message <2.2.16.19980530161448.0e7f5ac0 at pop.igc.org>, Michael
Eisenscher <meisenscher at igc.apc.org> writes
>Perhaps it would be helpful to connect this discussion/analysis to the
>concept of "labor aristocracy." Don't workers who could be considered in
>this category "benefit" from exploitation or super-exploitation of other
>workers? But status in the aristocracy is not fixed or enduring and the
>inner workers of the system routinely knock workers who felt safely
>insulated within it back into the larger labor market. Momentary advantage
>(always relative) is not the same thing as secure or enduring advantage,
>whether that advantage is created by skill, by race, by gender, by nepotism,
>by ethnicity, or whatever. As the system matures and evolves, with the
>introduction of new technologies that change the calculus of the labor
>markets, a relatively smaller proportion of workers are able to secure this
>privileged niche.
The labour aristocracy was a very specific product of Britain's monopoly position at the end of the last Century. The labour aristocrats derived their special privileges from the control over access to their trade, and so could command a price for their skills way above ordinary wages. Often they hired workers to do menial parts of the job. It was in this way that the labour aristocracy shared in the monopoly profits of the British Empire. They were swept away by the technological developments that undermined their control over their skill, and thereby their profession. The only equivalents today would be middle class professions and their organisations (I'm thinking of the British Medical Association, which is drawn from Doctors and also licenses Doctors).
Trade unions based upon wage labourers have often aspired to defend wages by excluding balck or women workers, but they have never had the power to do so where employers are determined to use migrant or women labour. Many different sociological studies have tried to locate the source of racial oppression within workers' organisations. And the willingness of these to endorse chauvinistic ideas certainly gives succour to that idea. But employers have never surendered their authority over hiring and firing, and reserve the right to use whatever labour they wish. -- Jim heartfield