On 2013-05-26, at 11:45 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> Marv: "Today's lower level of political consciousness of urban workers and
> their allies in the universities, professions, and elsewhere is a product
> of the changed economic and political environment described above. My
> argument has been that the liberal bourgeois politicians in the US and
> Europe are a reflection rather than the cause of the diminished
> consciousness and combativity of the working class."
>
> [WS:] It is a good argument, but it pertains mainly to blue collar
> occupations. The expanding white and pink collar occupations did not
> develop labor identity and militancy that goes with it, but rather
> identified itself with the bourgeoisie or perhaps petite bourgeoisie.
The differences between the various strata of the working class, though real, are IMO overblown. Consider, for example:
1. That industrial workers also began to see themselves as "middle class" once they acquired cars, homes, and other consumer goods as their standard of living improved.
2. That nurses, journalists, teachers, government workers and others once commonly identified with the petty-bourgeoise were "proletarianized" as their ranks expanded in conformity with the growth of the service economy and the welfare state in the post WWII era. This led to their emulating earlier generations of craft and industrial workers in forming and joining trade unions and engaging in militant strike activity. Blue and white collar workers live in the same households and belong to the same labour councils and trade union federations.
3. That all wage and salary earners have been equally affected by the state and employer counter-offensive against unions and public spending on social benefits which began in earnest in the 1980's. The blue collar unions were the first to be struck by the relocation of production to cheap labour zones at home and abroad. Now it is the public sector workers who comprise the majority of the enfeebled trade union movement who are being targeted as part of the effort to rollback the welfare state.
> I think that structural conditions that you refer to (welfare state,
> atomization, etc.) can only partially explain this lack of labor identity...I think that a big part of the explanation lies in what
> Bourdieu calls "cultural capital" - which cuts across class lines and
> divides working class into class fractions. By cultural capital he means
> life style considerations, such as forms of entertainment and leisure
> activities, aesthetic preferences, food choices etc.
But hasn't this always been the case? The working class is not monolithic and has always been divided by income and occupational status, and by region, race, and gender, each group with its own culture. These differences became more apparent as the workforce and labour movement expanded and became more variegated. When conditions were favourable to the growth of unions, such divisions were often (though not often enough in the case of race) subordinated to the need for solidarity in common struggles in the workplace and politics. If workers today lack any sense of a "labour identity", ie. class consciousness, and the racial and other divisions between them are more pronounced, I still believe this is mainly due to the changed conditions and historic defeats experienced by the workers' movement rather than the "different forms of entertainment and leisure activities, aesthetic preferences, food choices etc." which workers from different cultures brought into the movement from its inception.