[Fwd: Re: [lbo-talk] Henwood on immigration]

[Seth Ackerman]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:

>Second, even if "ordinary people" actually saw a
>decline in their living standards themselves, instead
>of being told about it by left-wing intellectuals,
>what is the guarantee that this realization will
>produce cross-national solidarity as opposed to, say,
>populist or nativist fascism ?  Of course, nobody
>really knows, and anyone's guess is as good as anyone
>else's, but the historical record seems to make the
>fascist outcome look more likely.  Past performance is
>not a guarantee of future success, as we are
>constantly reminded, but it at least puts the burden
>of proof on those who claim that this time it will be
>different.
>  
>

I'd go further. What is the economic basis of cross-border working-class 
solidarity? This might sound heretical, but the fact is that workers at 
grossly different levels of development usually don't have the same 
economic interests. At least not in any obvious way. The easiest way for 
Chinese workers to get richer is by taking advantage of their low wages 
to take away market share and investment from Western workers. There is 
no obvious basis for solidarity under those conditions. I'd like the 
opposite to be true.

There's an anecdote in David Montgomery's "Fall of the House of Labor" 
where (Socialist-led) GE workers in Schenectady during WWI went on 
strike after hearing a rumour that the company was planning to bring in 
blacks from the South (which at the time was a classic rural Third World 
economy accidentally housed within US borders). The company promised not 
to. A few days later, workers walked out when they noticed a black 
machinist, but they were persuaded to return to work when the company 
told them he was actually a Northern student.

Seth