[lbo-talk] German election: the markets won't like this

[Marvin Gandall]

I agree, Wojtek, with what you say below about the international scope of
the problem requiring an internationalist response, but I think you may be
abstracting somewhat from the reality of the situation which is a) the
workers in the sectors which are bleeding jobs want their dues money going
to protect them in the here and now, and have only a vague understanding of,
and even lesser commitment to, the longer-term need to organize other
workers in the low wage areas, b) the unions for the most part are
responding to these immediate pressures from below by trying to cut the best
deals possible with the employers, which usually involve layoff by
attrition, more generous severance, protection of retirement benefits,
two-tier pay systems for new hires, etc., and joining with the companies to
demand protectionist measures at the state level,  and c) my sense is there
is a growing impulse towards international union cooperation and organizing
by American, European, and other unions, but that they lack conviction
because is a very high mountain to climb, ie. you are dealing with workers
at very different levels of economic development, often with competing
interests in the scramble to attract capital investment and jobs, speaking
many different languages and separated by great distances.

I don't know what we would do differently if we were running these
organizations, except perhaps try and do more and better internal education
and throw more money into international unionism, but I would still not feel
confident this in itself would  much dent the "iron law" of capitalism which
you cite below. I think many if not most union leaders, contrary to
left-wing mythology, would like to lead their members in successful
no-concession fights against their employers and to organize the unorganized
at home and abroad and to grow bigger and more powerful if they could. Why
wouldn't they, even if they are called "bureaucrats"? Where they feel they
can prevent concessions, which is not often, they do strike, but are mostly
unsuccessful, because capital is stronger for the reasons we both
understand. Today, most work stoppages seem to be instigated by employers
who are the more confident party or, in weak industries, desperate to bust
their unions. The union leaders are mainly reduced to defensive cap-in-hand
efforts to limit the scope of the concessions being demanded and to minimize
and cushion the shock of job losses on behalf of their beleaguered and
insecure members.

MG
--------------------------------------

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 10:23 AM
Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] German election: the markets won't like this


> Marvin:
>> That's because German capital has been exporting manufacturing jobs to
>> lower-wage Poland and other former Comecon countries, and where it hasn't
>> exported them, has used the threat of relocation to wring concessions
>> from
>> the German working class.
>
> This is precisely why capital is in a stronger position than labor -
> capital
> is the force of globalization and progress, albeit on its won terms, labor
> is the force of protectionism and reaction.
>
> The fact of the matter is that the Federal Republic was designed as a show
> case of anti-communism, and now that the "threat" of communism is gone it
> is
> time to roll some of those perks back.  It is so because the majority of
> the
> global working class earns much less than the German, or for than matter
> the
> US, labor.  It is a very simple thing which Marx referred as the "socially
> necessary cost" of commodity production - if commodity can be produced at
> a
> lower cost it will be produced at a lower cost, and demanding higher wages
> is simply asking for acts of charity.  Nothing has changed in that respect
> since the Bearded One was alive, except perhaps advances in technology
> giving capital more mobility.
>
> The proper response of the Left is to address the issue from the point of
> view of the global working class rather than defend protectionist measures
> that used to guarantee a privileged position of the workers in a handful
> of
> Western countries.  That is to say - to promote globalization, just as the
> capital does, but on alternative terms.  This was the key of Marxist
> Left's
> success in the past - it denounced utopians socialism and embraced
> industrialization just as the capital did - but it offered an alternative
> version of it.  This version did not produce industrial paradise on earth
> as
> some pie-in-the-sky popular activists had hoped, but it produced material
> living conditions much more favorable to the working class than the
> capital's version of industrial development.
>
> Now, the left-of-the center parties tend to be more preoccupied with
> defending the welfare state in a handful western countries that providing
> vision and leadership for the future.  Quite frankly, I do not think that
> the German "left" parties have anything to offer to the majority of the
> global working class that lives in Turkey, Poland, or China.  In fact, it
> is
> German (or US) capital that invests in those countries that has more to
> offer for the working class there - jobs, technology, better living
> conditions, escape from the idiocy of the rural life.
>
> In short, internationalism is the name of the game -and so far only the
> capital pays that game with reasonable proficiency, on of course to its
> advantage.  Parties of the Left, all over Europe, and in the US (if that
> term is appropriate here) still have not got it and are still playing the
> game that is over - that of national protectionism, which has nothing to
> offer to the majority of the working people globally.  And as long as it
> so,
> the left will be more and more marginalized.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
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