myth of upward mobility

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Tue Mar 27 21:39:56 PST 2001



>Do you/we really want to make the argument that Society A is better
>than Society B b/c there is a higher degree of inter-generational mobility in
>Society A ? Both Society A and Society B have a persistent and tenacious
>social class structure, one grounded in unfreedom and exploitation, but in
>Society A there is more upward (and hence downward) mobility. Even supposing
>away the possibility of a transition to socialism, I'd rather take Society B
>if Society B featured a proud, defiant, and class-conscious proletariat,
>rather than one preoccupied with "moving up in the world" (to some squalid
>middle managerial job replete with a pseudo-cosmopolitan lifestyle).
>Mike Leigh's
>vitriolic cinematic satires of the UK's post-Thatcherite working class come
>to mind.
>
>John Gulick

***** As co-operation extends its scale, this despotism takes forms peculiar to itself. Just as at first the capitalist is relieved from actual labour so soon as his capital has reached that minimum amount with which capitalist production, as such, begins, so now, he hands over the work of direct and constant supervision of the individual workmen, and groups of workmen, to a special kind of wage-labourer. An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, overlookers), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. The work of supervision becomes their established and exclusive function. When comparing the mode of production of isolated peasants and artisans with production by slave-labour, the political economist counts this labour of superintendence among the faux frais of production. [16] But, when considering the capitalist mode of production, he, on the contrary, treats the work of control made necessary by the co-operative character of the labour-process as identical with the different work of control, necessitated by the capitalist character of that process and the antagonism of interests between capitalist and labourer. [17] It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge, were attributes of landed property. [18]

[16] Professor Cairnes, after stating that the superintendence of labour is a leading feature of production by slaves in the Southern States of North America, continues: "The peasant proprietor (of the North), appropriating the whole produce of his toil, needs no other stimulus to exertion. Superintendence is here completely dispensed with." (Cairnes, l. c., pp. 48, 49.)

[17] Sir James Steuart, a writer altogether remarkable for his quick eye for the characteristic social distinctions between different modes of production, says: "Why do large undertakings in the manufacturing way ruin private industry, but by coming nearer to the simplicity of slaves?" ("Prin. of Pol. Econ.," London, 1767, v. I., pp. 167, 168.)

[18] Auguste Comte and his school might therefore have shown that feudal lords are an eternal necessity in the same way that they have done in the case of the lords of capital.

<http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch13.htm#n16> *****

Yoshie



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