Charles said, "The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their great numbers etc." I agree with this analysis of this shift completely. Does it mean that the end of Leninism has been reached in the US?
Hope all is well. Peace, Matt On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 11:52 PM, c b <cb31...@gmail.com> wrote: > post-Fordism and geographical scattering of > Charles Brown charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us > Tue Apr 28 19:52:54 MDT 1998 > > Previous message: M-TH: Bouncing around socalled globalization > Next message: M-TH: Re: Australian working class and superimperialist > Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ] > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To: Dave > From: Charles > > Here's some more on globalization as > a qualitative shift from what Lenin defined > as imperialism, monopoly capitalism; the > uniting of financial and industrial capital; > export of capital as a shift from export of > goods; the "advanced" European colonialist > countries dividing and redividing the world; > socalled world wars, meaning all European > wars.=20 > monopoly concentration; labour aristocracy > bought off with superprofits of booty from > colonialism; etc. etc.; electricity, trains, > assembly line as technological innovations > in the means of production. > =20 > Gramsciians would say the culture of this > was Fordism, as discussed below. > =20 > >>> "Charles Brown" <charlesb at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> 03/29 4:16 PM > = > >>> > > From ground zero of Fordism here in Detroit, we experienced the last 45 = > years of change from the classic big industrial plant (such as Ford = > Dearborn with 100,000 workers)concentration to scattering of the points of > = > production as plantclosings, runaway shops, and white flight to the = > suburbs. So the transition to socalled post-Fordism got our attention real > = > good and we've been trying to figure it in Marxist political economic = > terms. > > It occurred to me that the "new global economy", transnationalization= > of monopoly capital represents a dialectical qualitative change in the = > following sense. =20 > Marx in Capital defines two factors in the > qualitiative emergence of industrial capitalism over manufacture = > capitalism. They are the use of machinery=20 > and the concentration of workers in one big factory. > Thus, the graphic locus of the classic Leninist agitation and = > propaganda the giant industrial plant. > The qualitative change of today is the the revolution in science and = > technology which has begotten a revolution=20 > in transportation and communication, creating such things as just in time = > delivery, containerization . Thus a revolution in machinery, one of the = > original two breakthroughs in Marx's analysis of industrialization, has = > made it possible for the capitalists to decentralize and scatter the = > points of production. The end of Fordism is the end of the big plant. The = > capitalist can move parts etc around so fast that they do not need the = > efficiency of concentrating workers in big plants, in ghettoes in the = > city, the whole ball of wax that gave rise to Leninist tactics in the = > class struggle by which workers got a sense of their power by their > great numbers etc. > I suggest the above infrastructural sketch as=20 > corresponding to the cultural change now > named post-Fordism. > But don't count the proletariat out. The slogan=20 > workers of the world unite , is more true today > than when Marx and Engels coined it. And the > proletariat is fresher than post-Fordist theory might > know. In other words, the proletariat knows how to > go with the new. Detroiters probably could show > post-ologists a thing or two about what is new. > > from Proletarian Central, Detroit > Charles > =20 > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > -- If one needs a community to resist interdependence must be seen as a moral obligation. "Men don't need to show our manhood, we need to show our humanity" -- James Boggs, 1990 _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
