> A welfare state for the unemployed is a nice thing, but it's not a job
> where
> workers have power over their lives and a claim to control of economic
> resources.
>
> As for training, give me a break. Have you just become a complete
> liberal
> on job issues? Training is useful, but only if workers get some
> guarantee
> that the jobs they train for won't disappear like the jobs they just
> lost.
I'd prefer to approach this subject from a more radical angle: in a capitalist system (whichever country it operates in), it's precisely *not* in their jobs that workers have power over their lives, and whatever claim they might have to economic resources as a result of their having jobs is purely due to the good will of the capitalists (subject to the constraints that they still need some workers in the production process and therefore have to feed, clothe, and shelter them and their families and supply them with enough goodies to keep them loyal to the system and have to have customers for their products).
From this point of view, there is no great difference between "slave" China and "free" U.S., except the standard of living (which as Marx pointed out is governed in each country by historical/cultural circumstances). Rather than support American workers' conceptions of how awful things are in China vs. how lucky they are to be under the Stars and Stripes, I think it is more important to explain to them how much they and other capitalist workers the world over share and how screwed-up the system itself is. Granted, this is a very hard idea to get across these days, but the more we work at it the more we will learn how to do it.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. -- Attr. to Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile