Comrades,
There isn't a point that Melvin doesn't miss. In his reply to Comrade Nigokda
he states:
“Imperialism” is a big word.
"Imperial means advanced societies with more developed means of production
and armaments generally bring the less advanced societies into their sphere
of influence. Imperialism has characterized human history for thousands of
years. Marx gives us our theory of capitalism and the imperialism based on
it. Lenin’s description of modern imperialism updated Marx. Lenin’s
outlook became the political foundation of the Third International.
"The essence of 2011– its distinguishing economic feature, is an epoch of
social revolution, based on “post industrial” means of production.
"Imperialism and the proletarian revolution" is not descriptive enough to
define the typical and non-typical economic and political phenomena we face
in 2011. "Imperialism and the proletarian revolution" seems to be short
speak for “imperialist wars, proletarian revolutions and national/colonial
wars of liberation.”
This is unbelieveable! Imperialism is a big word! How astute but not much
more intelligence in the following comments of the reply. We are to believe
that "imperialism and proletarian revolution is not descriptive enough..."
First of all imperialism and proletarian revolution comprises volumes on its
descriptiveness and to address this no one has the time to rewrite the volumes
that have been written on these subjects. It is assumed in general polemics,
especially on a list that mainly is designed towards those with at least a
rudimentary or basic understanding of Marxism, that they will understand the
subject of imperialism and proletarian revolution so that is why it is stated
in generalizations.
However, Melvin reduces imperialism and proletarian to very narrow and rigid
concepts of imperialist wars and wars of liberation and only fleetingly
mentions anything about its connection with capital so that is basically
dismissed. It is his comments that do not provide a descriptive enough
definition. Instead we are left with the implication that somehow Marxism now
is merely "short-speak" and that imperialism now only means wars. This is the
error that lays the foundation for his comment in another related reply:
"This means defining this era - 2011, as "imperialism and proletarian
revolution" is rejected."
Rejecting Marxist theory and analysis of imperialism and proletarian revolution
- that is certainly a revisinionist proclamation if ever there was one. A
revisionist statement based on the attempt to reinvent Marx.
According to Engels:
"...the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of
their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live."
(Engels, note to The Communist Manifesto)
The concentration of the means of production in the hands of the bourgeoisie
and the expropriation of the small producers is mirrored by the growth of the
proletarian class. At the turn of the century the majority of US labor was
still made up of farmers and other small proprietors. By 1940, the importance
of the petty propriators had declined greatly, but they still made up over 22%
of the labor force. (Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1944-1945,
Census Bureau, pg 124)
By 1982 the number of petty proprietors had been so reduced that they made up
less than 10% of the labor force. Nearly 90% of the labor force had been
converted into wage waorkers. (Employment and Earnings, Jan 1983, Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS), pg 11)
The extreme degree of economic concentration and class polarization can
be further seen by the fact that only 6% of wage workers work for the petty
propietors; the remaining 94% work for the capitalist class of employers that
hire 5 or more workers. The majority work for large capitalist enterprises
that employ at least 500 workers. (The State of Small Business, Small Business
Administration (SBA))
The proletariat as a class carries out nearly all of the productive labor in
society and the productive sectors of the proletariat include not only those
involved in the production of material goods (industrial workers, agricultural
workers, construction workers, etc.) but also those involved in the
transportation of these goods such as truck drivers, railroad workers,
warehouse workers, etc. It also includes those who render services sold by the
capitalists such as restaurant and hotel workers, laundry workers, hospital
workers, etc. The sectors of the proletariat in the non-productive sphere
include private domestic wage workers, retail clerks, clerical, janitorial and
maintenance workers in the spheres of finance, commerce, government
administrations, etc.
As capitalism has developed, the number of productive workers has declined
relative to the number of non-productive workers. This relative decline is,
fundamentally, the result of the tremendous development of the productivity of
labor. With the introduction of ever more modern technology and the
intensification of labor, less amount of workers produce a much greater
quantity of goods. As technology continues to advance the result will be fewer
and fewer workers required as wage workers but having said this it still
remains that there will always be wage workers needed. Can a computer lay rail
lines? Can a computer drive a delivery truck? Can a computer do laundry? Can
a computer build a skyscraper? Can a computer repair a broken arm? The list
can go on and on and on.
Inspite of the advancement of technology the industrial proletariat is the
heart of the working-class and this class includes the continuing number of
wage workers being thrown out into the streets by technology. This does not
constitute a new class, it is the same class of wage workers who have merely
been exploited to the point of rendering them jobless because of being replaced
by technology.
The proletariat remains regardless of whether they are among the fewer to have
jobs and it is the experience of the industrial proletariat based on the
massive concentration of workers, employed or not, still facilitates
organization and political and economic activity. The decline in the relative
size of the industrial proletariat does not in the least take away from its
role as the leading and decisive section of the working-class. This leading
role is connected with social and economic factors and not with its relative
size.
In Czarist Russia, the industrial proletariat was only a small minority of the
working masses, most being peasants, but this did not diminish its leading role
in the revolution. The industrial proletariat plays the leading role role in
the working-class movement in all capitalist countries regardless of its size
relative to the entire working population. It is because of its experience in
its relation to production in a collective fashion on the largest scale that it
maintains its leading role. It matters not one iota if at some point in the
future 98% of all wage workers are unemployed by the replacement of technology,
what does matter is that the experience of the industrial proletariat having
been derived from the very nature of its collective productive nature of its
work. This experience compells the employed or unemployed industrial
proletariat to the fore of the class struggle and does not make it a new class
- it still remains the
working-class - the proletariat.
Hence, it makes no difference what LRNA or Melvin says, any suggestion that
capitalist society is being "deproletarianized is completely absurd. The great
mass of people have never been so removed from theownership of the means of
production. These means of production have never been centralized into so few
hands. There has never been such a great division between mental and manual
labor, and between the organization of production and production itself. In
short, there has never been such great class polarization as there is today.
Moreover, the process of proletarianization is continuing relentlessly and
irreversibly with the further centralization of capital, the ruthless
expropriation of the remaining small proprietors, the growth in the scale of
capitalist operations and the increasing division of labor within them. The
size of the proletariat in this or that sector may change, workers may be
shifted from one sector to another, but the overall size of the proletariat is
always growing and employment or unemployment does not alter this fact, it
further reinforces it so the working-class remains the same class. Its
expolitation by and replacement with the bourgeoisie's new and continually
advancing technology does not make it a new class. The only thing "new" is the
working-class' relationship to this new means of production based on technology
but it does not make it a "new class".
Enver Hoxha stated:
"Despite the changes that have taken place in the contemporary capitalist
world, the working class is stripped of any kind of ownership over the means of
production, of its management, organization and aim...contrary to the sermons
of the bourgeois and revisionist ideologists, capitalist society is not being
deproletarianized, but on the contrary is being proletarianized continuously."
The working-class is continually being proletarianized based on its relation to
the means of production. This relation does not presuppose employment
whatsoever. This relation also includes its unemployment as well. The
relationship to the means of production is bound up in the struggle of the
working-class to the ownership of the means of production and it is for this
reason that it matters not whether wage workers are employed or unemployed -
they both struggle to seize the means of production and place it a relationship
to be controlled by the proletariat. Hence the need to smash the bourgeois
State.
According to Lenin imperialism is "moribund capitalism" so we ask ourselves Why?
Stalin needs no "interpretation" or explanation. The following is from his
Foundations of Leninism wherein he answers this question:
"Because imperialism carries the contradictions of capitalism to their last
bounds, to the extreme limit, beyond which revolution begins. Of these
contradictions, there are three which must be regarded as most important.
_______________________________________________
Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list
Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
