JBrown72073 at cs.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 8/7/02 12:32:28 AM, owner-lbo-talk-digest at lists.panix.com
> writes:
>
> >Let's face it, American labor is comfortable
> >with its arrangement with capital. This is because it understands that
> >its standard of living depends on U.S. workers exploiting the workers in the
> >Global South.
"American labor" like "THE Left" doesn't exist. Such abstraction become real only under special (and it seems unpredictable) circumstances. And of course even under those hypothetical special circumstances all we would mean by "American Labor" would be, numerically speaking, only about 15-30% of the individuals constituting the class. A major feature of those special circumstances would be that another 30% or so of "American Labor" would be sort of secretly not too angry at the 20% raising hell.
Cynicism has its roots partly in number magic. The Cynic really thinks that a huge majority must consist of a majority numerically speaking.
Carrol
>
> Someone care to address that? It's sort of a first principle for a lot of
> anti-globalization folks that regular U.S. workers are enjoying the bounties
> of imperialism. How much is this really true if you count the military
> costs, and examine the glorious 'standard of living' of the bottom 70 percent
> or so, which would include nearly every union household? And yes, I have
> spent time in countries the U.S. & IMF beat up on.
>
> Jenny Brown