At 07:25 AM 3/9/01 -0600, you wrote:
>I agree with the Reich saying that racism is not in the ultimate interest
>of the working class as a whole -- BUT this idea is far from unique to
>Reich, it is probably one of the few ideas which lefties and marxists have
>a very general agreement with!!
Reich never claimed that his idea was original. He's basically an
empiricist, providing evidence to back up the hypothesis. (Strictly
speaking, he tests various hypotheses -- including neoclassical ones -- and
finds the NC ones wanting.)
BTW, I think it's a mistake to expect every scholar to have original ideas.
Few do.
>Beyond that general idea, I think there are weaknesses in the segmented
>workforce theories as written up by Gordon, Reich, et al.
One of the big problems with Reich's book is that it isn't integrated with
or contrasted with the Gordon et al. labor market segmentation theory. It's
a separate project, within the general "divide and conquer" framework. That
school is (or was) hardly monolithic.
>Mainly, I think their work ignores, or only superficially deals with, the
>interaction of race and gender.
maybe superficial, but that's why we should never rely too much on _any_
school or individual to do all the work or to provide all the answers for
us. Instead of singling out "schools" that fight each other (reminiscent of
the dramatic battles of ideas that Marx and Engels mock at the start of the
GERMAN IDEOLOGY), we have to seek a synthesis.
>As to whether or not racism is in the interests of the working class, I
>think there is a conflict between individual worker perceptions of the
>usefullness of either playing along with racist policies or maintaining
>silence about racist policies and the ultimate interests of the class as a
>whole. An analogy would be the paradox of thrift.
this fits with Reich's ideas perfectly.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
