On Nov 20, 2009, at 4:50 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> wrote:
>
>> It's a lot easier to write theory when you don't actually have to
>> marshall
>> any empirical evidence. Because to make an argument like this, you
>> couldn't
>> marshall any empirical evidence.
>
> So what's the counterfactual empirical evidence to Agamben's claim?
The petty bourgeois in the rich countries has been shrinking for decades, and in what we used to call the Third World, the ranks of the proletariat have grown enormously. As I recall, based on ILO figures, the size of the global working class - defined as wage workers who have to sell their labor power or starve - has doubled over the last several decades. I suppose if you want to include informal sector workers in the p.b., you could bulk up their ranks a bit, but what about all the toilers in factories in China, India, Korea, etc.?
Doug