Marvin: But you're right, there has been over the past three decades a qualitative decline in class struggle in the West...
Somebody: I hear this a lot, with the implication that the class struggle continues in the oppressed global South. But, it's not true. The left is almost completely absent from industrializing East Asia for instance. This is a remarkable fact that is not fully appreciated. Imagine if Europe in it's period of transition from agrarian to industrial society had been as quiescent as China and South-east Asia are today. Actually, scratch that, it's impossible to imagine. All we can do is rip out the pages of the history books dealing with the German SPD, Lenin, Swedish Social Democracy, World War II, France in 68 and Italian Eurocommunism. Of course, this demonstrates conclusively that history determines consciousness more than material conditions - the failure of Mao, perceived or otherwise, outweighs the massive joining of workers in factories and urban centers and of peasants being pulled into wage labor.
Across the world, the the new proletariat of the emerging nations is far and away less active and self-conscious than the original European working class was. Wojtek is right to be so definitive, the class struggle is over, full stop. Maybe it'll reemerge someday, but you'd have to be generous to even say there's a glimmer of that day arriving. The most we see are workers leading rear-guard defensive struggles, and precious little even of that. As for the Latin American left, it's amounted to very little in retrospect - and it's clearly in decline right now, which the left broadly recognizes given the steep drop in discussion devoted to those countries in the past few years. Anyway, it's obvious that people like the late Nestor Kirchner and even Evo Morales would have been considered very middle-of-the-road in the heyday of the class struggle in the 20th century. Meanwhile, Cuba's about to hold it's next party congress to announce the liquidation of socialism in that last bastion of a dying faith. Well, not dying, it's dead.
^^^^^^ CB: Somebody has been developing this provocative thesis for a while. His slogan seems to be "The struggle does not continue" (smile), the anti-thesis of "history is a history of class struggles". If history has since the origin of classes thousands of years ago been class struggles, would be amazing if this relative ebb marked the end of all class struggle for all times.
How about South Africa where there was a general strike recently ? There are struggles going no in Mexico. The Venezuelan rev is a class struggle; the working class has its party in state power. In Brazil , a workers' party has state power , too. That's a result of successful working class struggle.
It seems unlikely that there is no "day-to-day", economic and shop floor class struggle by tens of millions of workers in Asia. No resistance to the bosses at all ???! Of course, there were widely reported strikes in China recently. The class struggle of the early European proletariat was mostly at this level spontaneous and lacking working class consciousness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strikes#21st_century
General strikes: 1992 April 1992 general strike in Nepal Nepal 1998 1998 Puerto Rican General Strike Puerto Rico 2002–2003 Venezuelan general strike of 2002-2003 Venezuela 2006 2006 democracy movement in Nepal Nepal 2007 2007 Guinea general strike Guinea 2008 2008 Egyptian general strike Egypt
* Verizon Strike (August, 2000)
* Jeffboat wildcat strike (2001, U.S.)
* National Gallery of Canada employees 9-week strike (2001, Canada)
* Actors Strike 2001
* UK Firefighter strike 2002
* Alberta Teachers strike 2002[2]
* University of California strikes (2003, U.S.)
* Scottish Nursery Nurses Strike (2003)
* 2003 Broadway Musicians Strike (US)
* Southern California Supermarket strike of 2003-2004 (U.S)
* 2004 CN Rail workers strike (Canada)
* 2004 Nippon Professional Baseball strike
* 2004–05 NHL lockout (U.S. and Canada)
* Bolivian Gas War (2005)
* 2005 Lakeside Packers Strike (Canada)
* 2005 New York City transit strike
* 2005 UPR strike (Puerto Rico)
* Dhaka strikes (2006, Bangladesh)
* 2006 USW Strike (U.S. and Canada)
* 2006 AK Steel Strike (U.S.)
* 2006 labor protests in France
* 2006 Oaxaca protests (Mexico)
* 2006 Progressive Enterprises dispute (New Zealand)
* South Korean railroad strike of 2006
* 2006 Toronto Transit Commission wildcat strike (Canada)
* University of Miami 2006 custodial workers' strike (U.S.)
* 2006-2007 Palace Casino Strike (Canada)
* 2007 Freightliner wildcat strike (U.S.)
* 2007 South African public servants' strike
* 2007 Orange County transit strike (U.S.)
* Hayward teachers strike (2007, U.S.)
* 2007 General Motors strike (U.S.)
* 2007 Chrysler Autoworkers strike (U.S.)
* 2007 UK postal strikes
* 2007 St. Petersburg Ford Motors Strike (Russia)
* 2007 United Space Alliance strike (U.S.)[3]
* 2007 Broadway Stagehand Strike (U.S)
* SEMCO Energy Gas Company Strike (2007, U.S.)
* Port of Napier Strike (2007, New Zealand)
* November 2007 strikes in France
* German national rail strike of 2007
* 2007-Pantex Security Guards Strike
* 2007 South Africa miners' strike
* 2007-2008 Cork players strike
* 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike (U.S.)
* 2007-2008 Berlitz Japan Strike (Japan)[4]
* 2008 Puerto Rico Teacher's Federation strike
* 2008 British teacher's strike
* 2008 Scottish Borders Council strike
* 2008 University of California strike (U.S.)
* 2008 American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. strike (U.S.)
* 2008 Sundance Kabuki Cinema Sex in the City strike (U.S.)
* United Kingdom council workers' strike (2008, U.K.)
* 2008 Toronto Transit Commission strike (Canada)
* 2008 Spanish truckers strike[5]
* 2008 First Group bus strike (U.K.)
* 2008 Sri Lankan train strike (Sri Lanka)
* 2008 Indian communication workers' strike (India)
* VIVA bus operators strike (Canada)
* 2008 Bollywood strike[6]
* 2008 Timmins Ont. "Met" Site strike (October)
* Boeing Machinists Strike of 2008[7]
* 2009 Lindsey Oil Refinery strikes
* 2008–09 York University Strike (Canada)
* 2009 City of Toronto inside and outside workers strike (Canada) [8]
* VIA Rail strike (Canada)
* Art Strike Biennial, Alytus, August 2009
* 2009 Leeds refuse workers strike
* 2009 UK postal strikes
* 2009 McMaster University Strike (Canada)
* 2010 University of Puerto Rico Strike
* 2010 Plymouth-Canton Community Schools Local#6094
* 2010 The Cast of Jersey Shore