On Mon, 27 Sep 1999 02:32:41 +0100 Jim heartfield
<jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> writes:
>
>I don't think that 'the worse, the better' is Marx's central point.
>His
>opposition to protectionism was pretty straight forward. The anti-corn
>law league were more progressive than the landowners, who sought
>protection at the expense of the working class.
>
I think that it was also the case that Marx opposed protectionism in Britain because he saw it as a fetter on rapid industrialization. For one thing since as you say, the protection of British agriculture came at the expense of the working class, this drove up labor costs for industrial capitalists, since they had to pay their workers more just to keep them alive. This obviously put them at a competive disadvantage. The cheapening of grain that came with the abolition of the corn laws increased the real incomes of workers without requiring that industrial employers pay them higher wages.
Anyway, as I understand Marx, the point of opposing protectionism was that its abolition would lead to a more rapid development of the productive forces, with the consequence that the proletariat would grow more rapidly in both numbers and power. This would in turn would lead to an exacerbation of the contradictions between capital and labor and hence eventually, so Marx hoped to revolution. I am not sure that Marx's point here is reducible to a simple immiseration thesis.
>It was always the case that Marx sought the clarification of the
>opposition of proletariat and bourgeoisie by resolving all those
>questions of democratic rights that preoccupied the artisan working
>class. He writes similarly upon political representation and so on.
>
>Contrary to Max's other posting I would say that we should oppose
>protectionism today, but not on the exactly the same grounds as Marx.
Marx's opposition to protectionism came within the context of society that was just embarking on industrialization. That is hardly the context in which we find ourselves in today.
>Protectionism suggests an identification with the national capital as
>opposed to foreign competitors. But, as Lenin would say, the main
>enemy
>is at home. It is not foreign goods that are putting workers on the
>bread line, but domestic bosses.
In our context, movements for protectionism involve the creation of alliances between labor and sections of national capital, in opposition to other national capitals as well as to other fractions of national capital. In other words this emeshes labor into the intramural quarrels of capitalists. This was a point that Marx also made and this is one that is relevent to our time.
>
>Obviously the slogan 'free trade' is not one to be supported - not as
>long as it rests upon a monopoly over the means of production. But
>protectionism ought to be opposed.
That was basically Marx's position as well.
Jim F.
>
>The US working class, I read, in Scientific American is substantially
>replenished with immigrant labour. I see no basis for identifying with
>US (or British) industry as against foreign. Now more than ever,
>workers
>have no country.
>
>In message <006101bf0897$eddc87c0$d818c897 at bellatlantic.net>, Max
>Sawicky <sawicky at epinet.org> writes
>>Tom Dickins:
>>> I know this speech by Marx has come up here (or pen-l) before so I
>hate to
>>> rehash it. But Marx's support for free trade is explicitly based
>on the
>>> immiseration of the proletariat thesis--that the
>>> concentration/centralization of capital will bring about social
>revolution
>>. . .
>>
>>mbs: Context aside for a second, I'd say this is not one of Marx's
>better
>>moments. His closing remark boils down to "the worse, the better."
>But
>>worse does not necessarily lead to better; it can lead to worse yet.
>>
>>I'd like to second TD's remark about the relative reasibility of
>union
>>organizing in manufacturing, hence its strategic political
>importance. It
>>may also have a strategic economic importance by propping up labor
>standards
>>and exerting some pull on service sector wages.
>>
>>Whatever the drawbacks of manufacturing work, the potential pay
>premium
>>seems to be enough for workers to figure out where their best
>interests lie.
>>As things stand, the Dems are abandoning these people to Buchanan.
>Let the
>>centrists babble about education, having eight different careers in a
>>lifetime, or improving service sector jobs. Let the greens vent
>about
>>alternative technology. Lefts can fantasize about revolution in the
>>periphery. Buchanan is going to be speaking directly to workers who
>>understand that is all hooey, and there is one guy who wants to
>*protect*
>>the jobs they want, the jobs their fathers had that enabled them to
>make a
>>life from the humblest origins.
>>
>>mbs
>>
>>
>
>--
>Jim heartfield
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