On Mon, 28 Jun 1999 21:18:00 Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
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>Fabian suggested a general view of bourgeois history:
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> Sometimes labor wins, sometimes capitals wins and now is capital's turn.
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Rakesh: your post brings up a lot of interesting issues that will take a me a while to answer due not only to the fact that I have very little time (full time slaving for a capitalist pig, finishing incompletes and working on dissertation all in 24 hours) but most importantly because they require time to think them-through instead of just telling you something out of the top of my head.
However, let me begin by clarifying that the above is NOT my general view of bourgeois history, I was actually being sarcastic about the vulgar view of class struggle popular among leftists. Doug in his message is very clear about this view, class struggle takes a cyclical form each side having its own heyday. Tatcher came to power because of the political pressure caused by labor's achievements measured by the falling p/w ratio. From this point of view then Right wing governments are to a large extent justified to oppress workers even when rates of exploitation are at all time highs (but profits continue falling due to capitalists battling among themselves) because under this narrow view of class struggle this is the natural reaction of capital attempting to safeguard its own interests against their enemy, labor. Ironically this is the same rethoric used by South American dictators in the 70's, "we are forced to take over the sovereignity of our countries to avoid the cha! os threatened by the forces of evil" (read small revolutionary movements like Tupamaros in Uruguay or large workers movements backed by popular support in Allende's Chile, etc). This is the view that class struggle in capitalism takes the narrow form of a struggle over the surplus. When labor wins they get the prize of higher wages and when capital wins their prize is higher profits. Sometimes labor wins, sometimes capital wins and when capital destroys labor unions is just capital's turn in this ongoing struggle.
In reality, the working class hardly ever gets to see a "winning period" where everyone has a well paid job, and as any working class person (lucky to have a job) will tell you, it is always a struggle to make it to the end of the month and it is always a feeling of insecurity and fear about the future. The masses, not some theoretical definition of the working class, are constantly in a struggle to survive, not just to get higher wages. This miopic view of class struggle is the illusion created by intellectuals from "developed" nations with jobs, comfortable lifes and enough time on their hands to philosophize about "class struggle" with other likely individuals in the previledged and impersonal atmosphere of cyber space.
In the real world of the working class, workers are always on the loosing end and the only solution to this problem seems to be a violent revolution(planned, organized and controlled by workers) that will change for the best (because it can't get any worse)their miserable reality, creating in the process the forgotten Che's notion of the New Man. Of course that this violent revolution will also change the not so miserable reality of the middle "alcahuete" classes that are just making it and hoping to make it better (ie. higher wages) so not everybody will obviously agree with this alternative and will choose instead to continue arguing as to how to achieve a "better" society through peaceful and more "civilized" means.
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