[WS:] Yes and no. The occupational status per se does not matter, as you say, but that status does not exist in a social vacuum - it has geographical and historical correlates that make a big difference.
The19th century industrial workers were very different species from the 20th century workers - the former were mostly fresh migrants from the countryside which was more geographically dispersed and had some social support net.
These migrants were geographically concentrated in industrial slums with little or no social support net - and that made organizing for social reform not only more easy (due to geographical concentration) but also more appealing (due to the dire sense of deprivation.)
The 20th century industrial workers - by contrast - were far more geographically and socially dispersed and enjoyed a far better living standards than their parents did - and that certainly had a negative impact on organizing for social reform.
And then, there are the historical correlates of the other side (i.e the ruling class), chief of which is the advancements in technologies of social control. The "old" ruling class relied mainly on the "three Rs" to maintain their power - Ritual (or tradition), Religion, and Repression. The more modern social technologies - based on agitation and mass mobilization - were used mainly by the challengers of the "old" elites, e.g. the 19th century "agitators," such as socialists, communists etc.
In th e 20th century, by contrast, the situation was reversed. The former reformers - especially the communists - became almost exclusively dependent on the "three Rs" to maintain their influence or power, whereas their opponents - the bourgeoisie and fascists - used the greatly improved by social science research and marketing techniques methods of agitation and mass appeal.
In sum, what matters is not occupational status itself - but its geographical and historical correlates that consists, for the most part, of different opportunities for mobilization and access to different mobilization / social control technologies.
PS. I am back from Portugal holding back nausea caused by putrefaction of the US empire :)
Wojtek
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 2:05 AM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/2/2010 1:39 AM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
>
>> I wouldn't blur the line between populist parties (which by their nature
>> are inchoate ideologically, multiclass, never pose the question of
>> structural transformation) and parties lead by the working class. Isn't
>> there a difference between a populist party like Peron's Partido
>> Justicialista or the Workers' Party in Brazil. Or between labor parties
>> and
>> social liberal ones (like the Democrats)?
>>
>
>
> On the difference between the Peronists and the Workers' Party, I don't
> know the answer. What do you think? On the difference between labor parties
> and social-liberal parties like the Democrats....You linked to a piece on
> the CPGB website defending the idea that the Labour Party is still a
> bourgeois workers' party, but I couldn't really make heads or tails of the
> argument. Is the Labour Party so different from the Democrats? What about
> the Labour Party of 2010 versus the Democratic Party of 1940? I think the
> important differences have to do with the vibrancy of the movements (if any)
> that underlay the parties. Whether the movements in question happen to be
> made up of industrial workers or not seems secondary. The U.S. People's
> Party was a radical movement because of the vibrancy of the Farmers'
> Alliance movement that under-girded it. So what if they were farmers rather
> than workers?
>
> SA
>
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