Justin writes as if these criticisms of Braverman as lacking a notion of worker subjectivity, which he sees as pretty "common," were made on the basis of some abstract analysis, one which imputed it to him on the basis of his adherence to a classical Marxist analysis of socialist revolution, with the notion of the working class as the complete object of history and society which is transformed into the total subject. In fact, the criticisms were made on the basis of the text of _Labor and Monopoly Capital_ itself, which clearly lacks any account of worker subjectivity under capitalism, especially _with regard to the labor process_ -- which was, after all, the topic of the book. It refers to worker resistance to Taylorism only in terms, as I said, of rearguard, isolated shopfloor resistance -- as a futile attempt to preserve, if you will, the last vestiges of labor's pre-capitalist control over the labor process. The point is to explain why this takes place, why this lacuna in Braverman's work exists, and that is why one goes to the shortcomings of the larger theoretical framework onwhich he relied. To ignore the problem in the book, and to attempt to refute the explanation of the problem on the basis of an assertion that the problem does not exist, simply will not do.
Justin also misreads, I believe, the intersection of Braverman's political biography and _Labor and Monopoly Capital_. In fact, almost twenty years before he published that text, his Trotskyist tendency dissolved and Braverman left the world of left trade unionism; he became a central part of the Monthly Review crowd, and was not hostile at all to their view, particularly strong during the late 60s and 70s, that socialist revolution in the "metropolis" was not a viable project. _Labor and Monopoly Capital_ reflects this pessimism about working class struggles in the West, and has the ring of a paean to the world of the past. In fact, by 1974, the whole MR crowd, including Braverman, had given up on any notion of the Western working class as an agent of historical change, much less socialist revolution; Braverman showed a lot more sense than Sweezy and Magdoff in not rushing headlong into a Maoist substitution of 'third world' peasantry and national liberation struggles as agents of socialist revolution; but by the time of _Labor and Monopoly Capital_, he certainly was no longer a traditional workerist Trot. Nonetheless, _Labor and Monopoly Capital_ did resonate with many of the New Leftists who were turning toward the Western working class in this period, and this is reflected in the spate of theoretical work which immediately followed and built upon it. However, given that gap in
Braverman's work, and the inability of others to fill this practical-intellectual void, so long as they relied upon the Marxist narrative, it quickly sputtered to a halt. My post was an attempt to explain why that happened; Justin offers no alternative explanation.
In the way in which he insists that Braverman was not opposed to 'reforms,' Justin fails to recognize what was distinctive about Braverman's work, and the challenge it posed to traditional left conceptions of industrial unionism. Left industrial unionism is implicitly based on the notion that the homogenization of the work force brought about by increasing management control over the labor process, by such developments as Taylorism, is a positive force, that it fulfills the prophecy of the Communist Manifesto that "society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- the bourgeoisie and the proletariat." In short, the increasing subsumption of the labor process to capital is the great leveler.
Now, of course, Marxism and left industrial unionism saw the necessity of so-called "reform" struggles -- that was the point of all the discussion in Marx of battles over wages, over the length of the working day, over safety and health, and over organizing unions to accomplish those ends. To suggest that the critique of Braverman I posted denies such a possibility is to set up and demolish a straw argument. My point was that both Marxism and left industrial unionism had a very limited terrain of what was possible to "reform" -- one which excluded the labor process itself. The labor process could only be changed, it was believed, with an entire change in the mode of production, with the passing of capitalism and the coming of socialism. [The great irony here, of course, was that where such 'socialism' came into being, the labor process was subjected -- at Lenin's own direction -- to... Taylorism.]
In raising the question of the labor process, therefore, Braverman was putting on the table for discussion an issue which Marxism and left industrial unionism has completely marginalized, had treated as irrelevant. But Braverman, because he remained wedded to the eschatological framework of a Marxism in which the labor process could only be transformed for the better under socialism, was unable to follow up on his own conceptual breakthrough. He was unable to understand that the labor process could be the subject of active worker struggle directed toward immediate, positive transformations, not simply rearguard resistance against the inevitable subsumption of labor to capital.
Continued
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