On 2013-10-04, at 1:04 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Working-class interests are sometimes served, usually in response to strong
> mass actions of workers -- but I don't think this is ever, really, "at the
> expense of others [i.e.capital].
>
> For example. Social Security does, to some extent, serve the interests of
> workers, but it does _not_ do so at the expense of capital, as can be seen
> by comparing the present system to the Townsend Plan, which (perhaps)
> _would_ have been, to some extent, at the "expense" of capital.
>
> And sometimes what _seems_ to serve w-c interests actually contradicts those
> interests: The Wagner Act was a disaster for the American Working Class. The
> IWW had it right: No contracts, but we strike until management responds to
> our demands. And we go on strike again a day later if Management doesn't
> come across. Stanley Aronowitz is good on this.
I agree with your important point that working class reforms are typically not at the "expense" of capital, and have argued along the same lines previously. If sought-for reforms are a net loss for capital, the state will ignore or, if necesary, repress the movements agitating for them rather than accepting them in part and shaping them to fit the needs of the system. The Wagner Act, for example, was a response to factory occupations, bloody strike confrontations, and other forms of working class protest aiming at securing union recognition and collective bargaining rights. The Social Security Act was a very modest response to the demands of the mass Townsend Act movement for old age pensions. The legislation in each case was meant to take the steam out of the mass movements while boosting mass purchasing power within tolerable limits set by the bourgeoisie.
Despite their limitations, however, I would call neither Act a "disaster" for the American working class, unless it can be shown that the balance of class forces was such that the trade unions could have sustained the kind of combativity IWW tactics required and that the masses could have forced the Roosevelt administration to adopt the Townsend Plan. I can't prove this nor can you demonstrate the opposite, but that both Acts were widely welcomed by the workers and their organizations suggests they saw something of value in each and perceived them as the most which they could accomplish in the circumstances.