> If there is no buyoff, why the victory of
> opportunism within the U.S.
> working class ?
1) No appealing alternative.
2) Media control
3) The possibility of upward mobility (guess this could be considered part of buyoff.)
4) Existence of right-wing ideology, racism, etc within the ranks of the working class
5) Last, but not least....not enough of them listen to WBAI and therefore have not heard Doug's radio show :)
^^^^^^^^
CB: I'll buy that, Thomas , and here's a rant on it:
I believe data does support the proposition that the US working class is materially better off than those in countries that are not part of the G-7 and the like. And that it has been better off for decades. Isn't the source of this relative prosperity greater domestic production ( and productivity ?) in the US than elsewhere ( especially assuming no superprofits from imperialism) ? In other words, an alternative explanation of the economic and social basis for lack of enthusiasm for revolution in the U.S. working class is that "they" have been all these years satisfied with their piece of the pie that they produced themselves ( not supplemented with superprofits from the colonies). Of course, some people (millions) are poor, but a critical mass of US'ers are satisfied enough that they certainly don't have enthusiasm for revolution, and certainly not for a change to something like in the Soviet Union, which was famously poorer than the U.S. (and really so now, given the Soviets themselves have rejected the system). And the poor are the least able to lead the revolution anyway.
We can add to this that the US bourgeoisie were made acutely aware of the points of weakness and potential attack on capitalism by Communist propaganda and revolution itself. Thereby , the US bourgeoisie focussed in to defend at these points of structural weakness- for example, developing more and more sophisticated ways of screening industrial workers and hiring those who would not tend to be radicals. Of course, strategic rather than mass use of methods to ruin the lives of key radicals. Various and numerous other ways of isolating radicals, including destruction of the CP's. I haven't really specifically mentioned the whole "buyoff" effect of New Deal/Great Society, social democratic measures.
Now that they have reversed the trend to social welfare, and are steadily taking back the historic reforms won by the working class and masses, there is insufficient consciousness (institutional memory )and organization left (after long term erosion) in and among the masses to get traction for a mass fightback. Solidarity has not been forever. The working class is more an more scattered into individualism. The mass psychology is like gambling. Even though only a small minority will be winners, everybody plays, caught in the dream that they might be the winner. The opposite of collectivity and solidarity.
So, there are few class stuggles waged from which class consciousness must grow. The unions are completely rotted out with opportunism, similarly the civil rights orgs. Communist ideology is completely discredited (by the way, part of this was accomplished by the deft move of equating anti-communism with patriotism through waging the Cold War), and so there is no one who can "put it all together" for the workers (no one they would listen to ); the workers don't come to class consciousness or socialist consciousness anyway without an "injection" from outside.
Ugh ! What is to be done ?