> In other news, I don't see why struggling against the bourgeoisie
> in one's own nation might not also amount to national chauvinism.
> It seems like a misapprehension of one's situation, since the
> opposite party, the bourgeoisie, is global. I would think the
> proper course of action for a union would be to organize
> internationally, and where independent unions are forbidden,
> to work politically to change the laws or government in those
> states, rather than to confine one's attention entirely to
> one's own locality. I realize this is mere liberalism, but
> I'm speaking to the case at hand within the framework given
> above.
>
> -- Gordon
Gordon,
I had Marx in mind, when he wrote, in the Communist Manifesto:
"Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie."
And, in General Rules for the International Workingmen's Association, he wrote:
"That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves, that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule;"
How are the workers themselves supposed to carry out organization against the bourgeoisie in other countries while also carrying out challenges of capital in their own?
Indeed, this "international approach"-- i.e., going to third world countries to organize unions there-- is one of the "new" tactics being carried out by the AFL-CIO bureaucracy in Thailand, Cambodia and South America. Of course it requires a group of highly trained technocrats, technicians and diplomats, who know the languages and cultures and laws of their destination, have the mobility to get around, etc. (Organizing factory workers and peasants cannot simply be carried out over e-mail.)
Are rank and file workers in the United States expected to train themselves in Thai and Khmer and hop on planes to third world countries in order to be "truly international"?
No one is saying that internationalism is bunk. I think it's extremely important for workers, as a class, to know and understand what's going on with their brothers and sisters around the world.
The goal of workers' struggles (unions, parties, etc.), from a socialist perspective, is not to enhance 'liberalism' qua capitalism, but to create conditions amenable to revolution. For revolution to be successful on an international level, it must first and foremost be carried out in one or several of the most economically developed countries where there are the highest concentrations and control of capital. The "third world" approach has succeeded perhaps in a national, reformist sense for those countries involved. But, as long as the centers of industry and economic development remain in the hands of capitalism, the former will be mired in corruption, repression, and gradual acquiescence (even in N. Korea!) back to full free-market systems.
Therefore, I do not think the goal involves the export of revolution to third world countries from those in the "first."
Best, David
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