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I don't have time for much of a reply to Ben's reply to my response to his article (and I mean really not much time, not that I couldn't be arsed). I do appreciate his willingness to engage and reconsider some of his formulations and points: it'd be wise I think not be too definite just yet about the Greens, in any direction, after their rise to now have real governmental influence. One of the positive things about the election is the tests this will put upon them. I'll try to look at his points in more detail before I do another version of my piece for http://links.org.au/ in a few days A couple of points: The apparent Socialist Alternative position, of the Greens being in no sense an alternative to labor, is sectarian in that it will make it harder for the socislist left to have a critical dialogue with Greens members and voters, and also crucially the significant militant union state branches and sections (all, interestingly, blue collar), will give large large wads of cash to the Greens as the best way they see to advance working class interests in elections (they generally also give small wads of cash to Socialist Alliance too). A didn't say I have and don't have a 'fundamental' difference with Kuhn and Fields about class analysis at all, having recently used their work as sources for a sketch of class structure in Australia as part of my PhD thesis. In fact I don't think I have a difference with them at all, having checked - I misremembered and thought they unduly discounted some professional layers as part of the working class, rather than pointing out the complexity of counting such layers. The most concise formulation of the working class today from Kuhn is probably: > The technique, developed by Diane Fieldes and me, of rendering ABS data into > a very conservative > estimate of the size of the Australian working class shows that workers make > up the vast majority of > the labour force. > In 2001, 84 per cent of the employed labour force was wage and salary > earners.4 If we exclude the > occupational status categories of managers, administrators and professionals, > but not teachers and > nurses, from this group the result is 5 378 554 workers. They are almost two > thirds of the employed > labour force. That is an underestimate, as it excludes many ‘employed > professionals’, like most > journalists or social workers, who are skilled white collar workers. Also > left out are those in the > ‘self-employed’ group, like many construction workers and outworkers in > electronics and clothing. > Legally contractors, in practice their level of control over their own labour > is no greater than that of > other workers. The Australian working class also includes retired workers, > discouraged job seekers, > people working in the home and dependents; in all about thirteen million > people. (From Rick Kuhn, 'Classes in Australia, in themselves and for themselves', Paper for the workshop on Class: History, Formations and Conceptualisations, 4-5 March 2006 University of Wollongong). Which I'd almost entirely agree with (i'd say all social workers who weren't managers would be workers, and probably even all employed professionals who weren't managers and who didn't have significant income from investments and property - e.g. lawyers who choose to work in the community sector or unions rather than self-employed practice). I still think Ben's article is much less clear, and inappropriately uses union membership and income in regard to the small sample of Greens in the Australian Election Study. Incidently I think we can do better estimates of the different classes and their fractions by using not the aggregate ABS figures, but the quite large census samples with individual responses to all questions that are available from the ABS (5% of the population I think), which can be sliced up with more confidence of accuracy than much smaller samples like the AES, but which may be costly. Perhaps I will be able to undertake some work detailed work on this some time. I think Marxists in general can use higher end stats more (even given the limitations I mentioned previously), but that's another story. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
