my own musing on Marxism & the proletariat

[escapingNihilism]

Marx sought to unite the revolutionary movement with the process of historical development. this led him to, in turn, unite the industrial proletariat with the currents of utopian socialism that preceded him. my question is, is this still as relevant as it once was? are Marxists necessarily bound to view the industrial working class as the main force of revolutionary agency in contemporary society?

I have not yet completely sketched all of this out, nor have I read everyone I want to read in order to form a conclusion (Bourdieu and C. Wright Mills, to name two). but my impulse is 'no', at least in the West. the shift to the service economy and deindustrialization has significantly changed the character of the workforce in the West -- should we Marxists not also change along with it?

[Jimmie Higgins]

First, I think Marxism (and revolutionary ideas in general) is always evolving - and it should be.

However, my view is that the fundamentals of capitalism remain the same and the fact that capitalism is constantly having to "revolutionize itself" and is always throwing our lives around doesn't change the bigger picture. In fact I think many of the largest mistakes of revolutionary ideas in the 20th century involve impressionistic readings of a temporary or transitory phase of capitalism as some new kind of capitalist system that fundamentally alters the dynamics of the system. So in the long-boom after WWII, the combination of Stalinism/Cold-War poltics and the rise of "communist" national liberation movements led to people dismissing European and North American and Japanese workers as "bought-off" leading to people arguing that students, peasants, counter-culture rebels were the new force for revolution since workers "benefited in the West" from Western imperialism. Although these ideas persist somewhat, they are much harder to argue now in an age of austerity and a generation or two of worsening conditions for western workers.

Now we are seeing a return of working class struggle and consciousness, but it's happening in the context of really shitty business unions that have been very undemocratic, tied to the Democratic party/Labor and shrinking in numbers. This leads many to write off unions if not industrial sectors all together. But again, I think this is impressionistic. Yes service workers and the unorganized should be oriented to, of course, but aside from impacting their own working conditions, the class-benefit of their struggles is the potential to help revitalize working-class independent fight-back! These struggles on their own have less power than truck-drivers or transportation workers or electrical or so on just because it is sort of less central production. The ruling class would be fine with months of yuppies being angry because they don't have their services and luxuries than they would if we shut down the power or docks for a week.

But I also think it is wrong to dismiss service workers as unimportant - like I said above I think this will be a very important location of struggles, but it will aid in a general revival of fight-back and confidence and the potential for workers to knit-together ways of organizing solidarity on a class basis. So maybe a strike by Wal-Mart cashier workers alone can be shut down by the Waltons (they closed a whole store in Canada rather than negotiate!) But if cashiers were linked with militants in other departments of the company, with teamsters delivering to Wal-Marts, with dockworkers shipping Wal-Mart products... then we can shut them down rather that the other way around.

Numerically there are less dock-workers today than during the 1930s, but it doesn't make their labor any less strategic in the working class's ability to shut-down the capitalist system - in fact it makes just a fewer workers more strategic. But this is why class organization and solidarity and cooperation are important for a larger and more effective class struggle - also why solidarity strikes are illegal in the US.

[Thirsty Crow]

are Marxists necessarily bound to view the industrial working class as the main force of revolutionary agency in contemporary society?This is a common misconception of the Marxist view on social classes and its relationship to revolutionary practice.
In short, while industrial production drew more and more people into the factory, as wage workers, in Marx's time, he still outlined his theory of social class in terms of the basic relationship to the means of production - dispossession/possession, meaning that the proletariat does not consist only in industrial workers but all wage workers irrespective of their concrete labour.


The shift to the service economy and deindustrialization has significantly changed the character of the workforce in the West -- should we Marxists not also change along with it?
I don't think we should overemphasize the supposed groundbreaking shift introducing the so called information society. We still live and work in capitalist society, but as I've stated above, Marxists don't have to change anything apart from their concrete analysis of the relations between different strata within the working class.

[Blake's Baby]

EDIT: Menocchio was replying at the same time I was so I'd like to state clearly that I agree with him...


I think in Marx's time it was easier to dismiss the 'service economy' as less important than the industrial workers for a couple of crucial reasons. The first was association, the second leverage.

Though Marx lived in Britain, which had a vast service economy (all those butlers, parlour-maids, gardeners, valets, cooks, kitchen-maids, gentleman's gentlemen and whatnot for example), it was primarily the associated productive labour of the working class which he saw as being the economic lever of class power.

Industrial workers came together in large groups, so their associations were both productive (in that large numbers were required to actually do the work) and social (in that they could meet their workmates en masse and organise with them against capitalism).

This gave them both leverage in the productive economy and the ability to organise and develop their class-consciousness.

The service sector had far fewer opportunities for both of these developments - typically between 1-12 servants would work at a house (there were larger staffs at bigger houses but obviously not so many of these), sometimes living in with the family and sometimes not, or a combination. There was much less opportunity to discuss with fellow workers, because of the rigid heirarchy imposed on the working relationships, and because of the fragmented nature of the sector. This means a) less leverage and b) less opportunity for mass organisation.

However, capitalism doesn't look like that now. The service sector resembles much more closely the old industrial sector. Vast sheds full of people on telephones or doing data entry have more in common with the factory system than with housemaids and valets. Service sector jobs are both more directly tied to production, distribution and realisation of capital (ie the direct process of making money for capitalism) and more associative in that greater concentrations of workers are placed together where they can organise more easily.

So while Marx concentrated on the industrial workers rather than service workers, he did so for specific reasons. As those reasons apply less than they did 150 years ago, I'd argue rather than say 'Marx doesn't apply now' I'd rather argue exactly the opposite - that Marxism is applicable to new phenomena. Not just the industrial-factory proletariat, but the new service-factory proletariat too, barely seen in Marx's day.

[Thirsty Crow]

I think in Marx's time it was easier to dismiss the 'service economy' as less important than the industrial workers for a couple of crucial reasons. The first was association, the second leverage.

I also think we should be careful not to confuse some of the categories employed by Marxists.
For instance, what bourgeois sociologists and economists call "services" is actually divided by the categories of productive labour and non-productive labour.
You mention cooks. That's a good example in fact. For Marxists, it's irrelevant what form the final product takes, and what is crucial is the production of surplus value. Therefore a cook employed by a restaurant owner is a productive worker since she produces surplus value, while what in Marx's time was viewed as service was a "mere" personal service - a cook employed by a person of high-standing, an non-productive worker (since he works for immediate consumption of the person who hired her).

And I like the term service-factory :)

[Blake's Baby]

I also think we should be careful not to confuse some of the categories employed by Marxists.
For instance, what bourgeois sociologists and economists call "services" is actually divided by the categories of productive labour and non-productive labour.
You mention cooks. That's a good example in fact. For Marxists, it's irrelevant what form the final product takes, and what is crucial is the production of surplus value. Therefore a cook employed by a restaurant owner is a productive worker since she produces surplus value, while what in Marx's time was viewed as service was a "mere" personal service - a cook employed by a person of high-standing, an non-productive worker (since he works for immediate consumption of the person who hired her)...

Yes, I agree, I wasn't considering the difference between staff in capitalist enterprises like restaurants and staff in domestic service, because I was trying to get at the whole idea of the 'service sector' in the 1800s being dominated by 'non-proletarian' strata (in that they weren't producing goods that were then sold...), but you're right that the term 'cook' is very ambiguous. I mean, 'cooks in service' and not 'cooks in trade' (though one and the same cook could of course move between the two branches of the economy).


...And I like the term service-factory :)

Thank you, it seemed to fit the idea I was after. I'm quite proud of that one actually, I shall have to use it again.

[escapingNihilism]

a corollary to this is the phenomenon of 'embourgeoisfication' -- there is now a large educated class (we can view this as the purchase of human capital through education, often financed by debt), which is as subject to the fits and starts of the capitalist class as the working class of yore, but is given the carrot of a comfortable chair and air conditioning, free coffee, etc. also the experience of higher education, and the concurrent accumulation of human capital, has a tendency to breed reactionary attitudes despite the dictatorship experienced in the workplace.

how do educated professionals fit in with a 21st Century socialist's conception of class?

[Blake's Baby]

I think embourgeoisification theory is junk.

All sectors of the working class are subject to the pressures of capitalist ideology, the ruling class uses a variety of methods to obscure the class oppression it presides over and to divide different sections of the working class from each other. If some 'white collar' workers don't see themselves as part of the working class because they've been to college then it's a sign that the ideological attacks on the notion of the working class (including embourgeoisment theory) are succeeding.

[dodger]

Marx sought to unite the revolutionary movement with the process of historical development. this led him to, in turn, unite the industrial proletariat with the currents of utopian socialism that preceded him. my question is, is this still as relevant as it once was? are Marxists necessarily bound to view the industrial working class as the main force of revolutionary agency in contemporary society?

I have not yet completely sketched all of this out, nor have I read everyone I want to read in order to form a conclusion (Bourdieu and C. Wright Mills, to name two). but my impulse is 'no', at least in the West. the shift to the service economy and deindustrialization has significantly changed the character of the workforce in the West -- should we Marxists not also change along with it?

Should we not have had the benefit of your musings 50yrs ago?....are we not capable of spotting such an obvious trend and ---and--and--we are asleep. The pity for us is our betters never sleep.

[Jimmie Higgins]

a corollary to this is the phenomenon of 'embourgeoisfication' -- there is now a large educated class (we can view this as the purchase of human capital through education, often financed by debt), which is as subject to the fits and starts of the capitalist class as the working class of yore, but is given the carrot of a comfortable chair and air conditioning, free coffee, etc. also the experience of higher education, and the concurrent accumulation of human capital, has a tendency to breed reactionary attitudes despite the dictatorship experienced in the workplace.

how do educated professionals fit in with a 21st Century socialist's conception of class?Well I think you are basically just describing the petty-bourgies which has always been a subject of consideration for Marxists and other (modern) revolutionary traditions. You could also be talking about higher paid workers who on an induvidual level and on an income level somtimes are indistinguishable from the professionals and well-off shop keepers of the petty-bourgeois. However, there is a clear class distinction between them in terms of their relationship to production - or when the class struggle shit hits the fan.

So for well-off proletariat who maybe work in a specialized or highly unionized workplace and take in "middle class" wages and can afford to send their kids to nice schools and for whom maybe the idea of upward mobility was a real life experience, can be individually drawn to petty-bourgeois ideas in non-revolutionary times. Their daily experience may be not too different from a low-level attorney or graphic designer - they may make more money than a shop-owner who constantly struggles to stay afloat, but there is a major class difference. For the shop-owner, there isn't any collective struggle on a class basis for him - he might have a business association or whatnot, but he's also competing against the other shops and he's relating to society as an individual and can not advocate for a new kind of society. So the petty-bourgies have to hitch their wagon to some other set of class interestes - usually the bourgeois and so they side with some section of the ruling class based on what they think might get them a better deal (social-dems if their concern is price of health-care or right-wing if they think tax-breaks are their biggest concern).

Even high-paid workers however, have to fight on a class basis if they want to gain in the long-run. A worker as an individual might screw over another worker for short-term benefit (like crossing a picket-line) but ultimately they are giving more power to their boss who can then turn around and make someone else accept even lower wages - forcing the first worker to accept even more cuts or loose his/her job. So even a well-paid autoworker or oil worker has to fight in a collective rather than individual way. High wages are also the result of past class struggles (like unionized autoworkers) or some momentary shift in the balence of things - like when tech workers were paid a lot in the 1990s because there was an internet boom and people with those skills could demand higher wages because of a shortage of those skills (now those jobs are unpaid internships because there are tons of people with basic computer skills). Most importantly for Marxism, unlike lawyers or shop-keepers who are not central to the main way this society produces what it needs, worker can potentially take over production and create the basis for a whole new kind of society where the people who actually produce what society needs actually run society.

Shop-keepers can't have their own revolution - lawyers led the American and French Revolutions but did so in the interests of more or less general capitalist interests (which they believed would be a much better way of running things - and it was compared to the ancient regime and feudalism). So these "marginal" classes need to side with one or the other big forces contending for rule of society. Normally they side with the capitalists, but under non-revolutionary circumstances so do most workers as individuals. But in a revolutionary situation, or leading up to one, an organized and conscious movement of workers can actually convince these other groups in society that worker's power would be a better option than the existing capitalist power over society. So I think AFTER there are some real and serious working class consciousness and struggle, workers will have to figure out how to win allies from other classes. The US doesn't actually have as big of a "middle class" as our myths here would have it - we're actually like 18th (don't quote me, but it's more than 14th and less than 20th if I remember correctly) among industrial nations in terms of small business ownership - behind most of the "small-business-killing" social-democracies of Europe. But still we're talking millions of people who have shops or work as professionals - and some of the bureaucrats and professionals can't be instantly replaced through a revolution. So I think worker's will make the case that if you don't side with the capitalists and counter-revolution, you can keep your own shops if you (or you and your family work them - or you are willing to take on any labor as an full and equal co-owner) support the new worker's society. They wouldn't be able to pass that shop on to their children and they wouldn't be allowed to exploit labor, but the trade-off for them would be a much more stable life without being crushed by big business or debts or, you know, world war and the destruction of the environment.

[La Comédie Noire]

There is a common misconception that Marx didn't foresee the decline of the industrial working class. However, there is a whole section in volume one where he explicitly talks about this trend.

[escapingNihilism]

There is a common misconception that Marx didn't foresee the decline of the industrial working class. However, there is a whole section in volume one where he explicitly talks about this trend.

which chapter, if you know?

[La Comédie Noire]

Lastly, the extraordinary productiveness of modern industry, accompanied as it is by both a more extensive and a more intense exploitation of labour-power in all other spheres of production, allows of the unproductive employment of a larger and larger part of the working-class, and the consequent reproduction, on a constantly extending scale, of the ancient domestic slaves under the name of a servant class, including men-servants, women-servants, lackeys, &c.

In the Machinery and Modern Industry chapter.

[escapingNihilism]

good stuff! thanks

[Dabrowski]

The proletariat, the class that lives by selling its labor power to reproduce capital is the only revolutionary class.

Periodically, middle class radicals in the U.S. and Europe look up from their notebook computers (evidently handmade by lawyers and powered by electricity generated by artists and graduate students?) and declare that the industrial working class is becoming obsolete. Why? First of all, because they have a nationalist outlook. They see a "service economy" in their countries because capital is being exported, and the proletariat is concentrated where it can be exploited by capital. Workers in the service economy are necessary for the transformation of capital from the commodity form into the money form, so that it can return to the circuit of production in factories overseas. Who do you think does that production? Or have we stopped using steel, plastic, aluminum, wood, electricity, and paper? Have we stopped driving cars and wearing clothes? Have we stopped eating food? Who makes these things? Millions and millions of workers, who are struggling and organizing and striking even as somebody in a university cafeteria declares them obsolete because they don't work in Detroit anymore.

Secondly, because capitalism is decaying, and the working class will decay with capitalism, creating millions of marginally-employed workers whom capital cannot find a way to profitably exploit. These can be a crucial ally of the industrial proletariat but they simply don't have the same social power as the ones with their hands on the means of production. To see them as some kind of new revolutionary class is suicidal impressionism.

[Mr. Natural]

Engels noted that Marx's two great discoveries were historical materialism and surplus value. As regards the latter, Marx saw that capitalism imprisons human labor--our productive and creative powers--and converts this labor into a system of runaway exploitation in the form of profit (uncompensated labor). Marx saw this system manufactured two mighty, opposed classes, and based his revolutionary theory on the ability of the working class to recognize the nature of its exploitation and organize revolutionary processes in their socialized workplaces, the "engines" of the capitalist system.

I find Marx's basic program still holds, although capitalism has now "gone global" and there have been many changes in the working class and the various national economies.

I'm tempted (hell, I'm compelled) to suggest that the left needs to re-work the concept of working class. Capitalism's globalization means that all of us and our creative, productive powers have been captured by capitalist institutions and relations. Don't we all now work for and owe our souls to the company store? How about homemakers? Doesn't the housewife/househusband work her/his ass off within The System? Isn't this uncompensated labor as much a part of capitalism as its wage earners?

Organize at the traditional industrial workplace? Hell, yes! But how about all those other workplaces--waged, salaried, or unpaid? Hasn't the entire human species been captured by capitalism? Isn't everyone immiserated within capitalism's inhuman relations, and isn't "everyone" then a potential revolutionary? Don't we all need to become revolutionaries before capitalism cashes us all in?

Capitalism is the enemy of all forms of life. I'm suggesting that the entire human species ought to take this personally and that there are many approaches to revolution that can take place in numerous places, some of which have been untouched by revolutionary theory.

Karl and Fred, I sure hope my comments haven't left you writhing in impotent intellectual fury in your current circumstances. I'm looking forward to your resurrections, actually.

My red-green best.

[dodger]

That needed to be said and has been said.....by people who did not wait for other people to tell them. Lovely piece of writing and observation. Mr NATURAL

[Zulu]

Marx sought to unite the revolutionary movement with the process of historical development. this led him to, in turn, unite the industrial proletariat with the currents of utopian socialism that preceded him. my question is, is this still as relevant as it once was?

...

my impulse is 'no', at least in the West. the shift to the service economy and deindustrialization has significantly changed the character of the workforce in the West -- should we Marxists not also change along with it?

The thing is many of the industrial workers (those that even remain) in the West are no longer part of the proletariat. The main feature of the proletariat (the one that earned it its name and made Marx consider it the main revolutionary force, and the one which was likely to endorse the idea of collective property at that) is that it "has nothing to lose", because the proletarians have no private property (save for very little maybe - but not much beyond what they wear on their body and have in their pockets). But an industrial worker, who owns at least an automobile (which is a means of production, by the way) is not a proletarian, he is petty bourgeoisie.

[Jimmie Higgins]

The thing is many of the industrial workers (those that even remain) in the West are no longer part of the proletariat. The main feature of the proletariat (the one that earned it its name and made Marx consider it the main revolutionary force, and the one which was likely to endorse the idea of collective property at that) is that it "has nothing to lose", because the proletarians have no private property (save for very little maybe - but not much beyond what they wear on their body and have in their pockets). But an industrial worker, who owns at least an automobile (which is a means of production, by the way) is not a proletarian, he is petty bourgeoisie.Nothing to loose... from the end of capitalism! I'm sorry but your argument is way off the mark - it's more romantic moaralism than historical materialism IMO. The main feature of the proletariat, for Marxists, is not their relative income or comfort level, but their relationship to the means of production.

First of all most people during non-revolutionary times perceive that they have something to loose personally by fighting the system. You could end up in jail, you could be killed, you could just put in a lot of effort for a lost cause rather than just try and maximize personal enjoyment. This is why there is often a very rapid and snowballing radicalization that happens in revolutionary times - people realize they can gain something better or that they have more to loose from the system remaining intact. I think this is sort of a pre-requisite for mass revolutionary consciousness developing. Although the balence of class forces can change within capitalism and movements of workers can force reforms or win higher wages - as we have seen over the last 30 years or so, these victories are transitory and the contradictions of the capitalist system will always need to try and reverse that. So ultimately, even the best paid workers, do not benifit from the system - they might have relative benefits (if you can even call more comfortable chains a benefit at all) from the results of past struggles, but these benefits are DESPITE the bosses and the system. Ultimately all workers have an interest in ending their exploitation and alienation.

It is also not the people with the "least to loose" who are always the first to radicalize since often being marginalized means that you don't already don't matter to the system. Movements of the unemployed are most powerful on a class basis when they have linked up with employed worker's struggles such as the some of the US General Strikes of the 1930s. This is because the employed workers can stop production and potentially take it over. In imperialist wars, what are the main targets aside from actual military equipment and units? Train tracks, roads (distribution) and factories or even working class neighborhoods (the US targeted German working class neighborhoods to stop the NAZI war production). This is because ultimately society needs production, workers are the revolutionary class not because they suffer (and often in many ways being a worker can be much much better than being a peasant or whatnot) but because they can stop, takeover production and then liberate all of humanity from exploitation because if workers are the people who run things, they don't need corrosion to produce what they need, they can accomplish things cooperatively.

[Dabrowski]

But an industrial worker, who owns at least an automobile (which is a means of production, by the way) is not a proletarian, he is petty bourgeoisie.

You know, I've tried packaging up my car exhaust, old oil filters, and worn out fuel pumps and selling them on ebay, but no takers. Tell me Zulu, how do you do it?

Production means production of exchange values, commodities. So unless the "industrial worker" with a car is moonlighting as an owner-operator taxi driver, you're hilariously wrong.

[dodger]

The thing is many of the industrial workers (those that even remain) in the West are no longer part of the proletariat. The main feature of the proletariat (the one that earned it its name and made Marx consider it the main revolutionary force, and the one which was likely to endorse the idea of collective property at that) is that it "has nothing to lose", because the proletarians have no private property (save for very little maybe - but not much beyond what they wear on their body and have in their pockets). But an industrial worker, who owns at least an automobile (which is a means of production, by the way) is not a proletarian, he is petty bourgeoisie.

Zulu, cannot endorse your views. A modern worker skilled discipline produces enormous wealth. How he chooses to spend it cannot make him into a Petit Bourgeoise. My daughter wears Armani, Boss, TagH watch, shoes with Paris labels, fake and phony as her bleached white skin.She at least at 19 works for her money. The blacksmith made up a MERCEDES badge to put on the front of my jeep, who's pedigree I have not a clue. No problem we know who we are we know where we come from, we know what we have to do to survive. Work. A link that gave me a few pointers......it's a national obsession in Britain and a disgrace......but a car wont make me middle class, ignoring the fact that its not even paid for, yet.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=5974

[Thirsty Crow]

They see a "service economy" in their countries because capital is being exported, and the proletariat is concentrated where it can be exploited by capital.
I don't think this is true in all cases since sometimes this notion actually stand on statistical data showing the relationship of the number of workers in industry and in other sectors. So in other words, the evidence might be understood as pointing to a kind of a remaking of the working class in specific areas of the world with corresponding specific conditions of capital accumulation.
But of course, the way the "service sector" is actually conceptualized is an entirely different matter and there's much obfuscation here.

And in relation to your reply to Zulu:

You know, I've tried packaging up my car exhaust, old oil filters, and worn out fuel pumps and selling them on ebay, but no takers. Tell me Zulu, how do you do it?Even then your car shouldn't be considered as private property or capital (since what Zulu does is to confuse private property with personal possession; not to talk about the influence of post-WWII urban renewal and suburbanization on the practical necessity of car ownership, especially in the US)

And Zulu, care to explain your revision of the basic Marxist take on class and class analysis and justify this ridiculous notion that personal possession of a car actually amounts to a possession of means of production?

[Blake's Baby]

He did explain (or at least state) that he thought a car was a means of production, and that's why workers are petites-bourgeoises.

[Thirsty Crow]

He did explain (or at least state) that he thought a car was a means of production, and that's why workers are petites-bourgeoises.
Well, he did assert, state that it was so, but any kind of explanation is lacking.

[Avocado]

First, I think Marxism (and revolutionary ideas in general) is always evolving

Is that not a contradiction in terms?

Does not revolution mean replacement, whereas evolution is gradual change?

[Blake's Baby]

False dichotomy, as the theory of revolutionary change in society is not in otself a revolutionary change in society, because if it were ever time anyone thought about a revolution there'd be one, and/or it would be impossible to think about a revolution if there weren't one.

I mean, the ruling ideas of any epoch may be the ideas of the ruling class and all, but they're not the only ideas, any more than they're the only class.

[Tim Finnegan]

I'd recommend to anyone who's interest the book Labor & Monopoly Capital by Harry Braverman, which discusses the development and restructuring (or "degradation", as Braverman blunty describes it) of work and the workplace over the coures of the 20th century, which dispels any assumptions about the hinging of a Marxist class analysis on the blue collar mass-worker- in part by demonstrating that the archetype of the "blue-collar mass-worker" does not refer to any historically consistent experience. The book was written in the early '70s, so the service industry is only discussed to a very limited extent compared to the factory and the office, but Braverman does not find any reason to believe that it represent a particular problem for the Marxist class analysis.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Is that not a contradiction in terms?

Does not revolution mean replacement, whereas evolution is gradual change?Not at all. Marxism is the theory of how workers can replace the dictatorship of the bosses, but that theory itself should always be evolving as both conditions change in capitalism and the balance of class forces as well as to account for new developments and theories (if they are actually useful and revealing). If Marxism is the science of revolution, then like other sciences, it needs to change and adapt to new data or new conditions, the alternative is ridged dogmatism and trying to make reality go with the theory rather than the other way around.

I think mistakes have been made both from people being too dogmatic and not confronting things that don't seem to fit the theories (like why hasn't capitalist crises become increasingly worse as many early Marxists thought) as well as people "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" by finding an instance of where events seemingly don't fit into the traditional theory and then declaring the whole concept to be wrong. This is probably best illustrated by the 2nd international parties who saw reforms and improvements for workers in the early 20th century as some "new normal" for capitalism when the change was actually more situational and momentary than a fundamental change.

[citizen of industry]

I think mistakes have been made both from people being too dogmatic and not confronting things that don't seem to fit the theories (like why hasn't capitalist crises become increasingly worse as many early Marxists thought) as well as people "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" by finding an instance of where events seemingly don't fit into the traditional theory and then declaring the whole concept to be wrong. This is probably best illustrated by the 2nd international parties who saw reforms and improvements for workers in the early 20th century as some "new normal" for capitalism when the change was actually more situational and momentary than a fundamental change.

I think there is a good case to be made re: crisis become more frequent and increasingly worse. I looked at recent stock market crashes and came up with this:


Wall Street Crash of 1929 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street_Crash_of_1929) and Great Depression (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression) (1929-1939) the worst depression of modern history



OPEC oil price shock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC_oil_price_shock)
Secondary banking crisis of 1973–1975 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_banking_crisis_of_1973%E2%80%931975) in the UK



Japanese asset price bubble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_asset_price_bubble) (1986–2003)



Bank stock crisis (Israel 1983) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_stock_crisis_%28Israel_1983%29)
Black Monday (1987) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Monday_%281987%29)



Savings and loan crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis) of the 1980s and 1990s in the U.S.
1991 India economic crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_India_economic_crisis)
Finnish banking crisis (1990s) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_banking_crisis_of_1990s)
Swedish banking crisis (1990s) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Sweden#Crisis_of_the_1990s)
1994 economic crisis in Mexico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_economic_crisis_in_Mexico)



1997 Asian financial crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis)
1998 collapse of Long-Term Capital Management (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management)
1998 Russian financial crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Russian_financial_crisis)
Argentine economic crisis (1999–2002) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_economic_crisis_%281999%E2%80%932002%29)





Automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_crisis_of_2008%E2%80%932010)
European sovereign debt crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_sovereign_debt_crisis)
Subprime mortgage crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis)
United States housing bubble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble) and United States housing market correction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_market_correction)
2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932011_Icelandic_financial_crisis)
2008–2010 Irish banking crisis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932010_Irish_banking_crisis)
Russian financial crisis of 2008–2009 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_financial_crisis_of_2008%E2%80%932009)


And there seems to be a lot of empirical evidence to support the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit, which would point to more severe future crisis. But then again, I might be dogmatic as you say and using current events to fit the theories.

[Strannik]

I have the impression that the working class is not split between industrial and service workers, its split along the lines of employed and "the reserve army of labour". I don't think that industrial workers have become irrelevant, but I do think that marxists pay too little attention to the "reserve army" (or is it called "precariat" now?)

Alone, both sections of the proletariat have their advantages and disadvantages. Employed are often organized and can take a collective look at things, seeing beyond the immediate individual interests. But they have this "trade union consciousness" - they often feel that they have something to lose - their jobs; they can be conservative, risk-averse and nationalistic.

Unemployed really don't have anything to lose and are ready to take any risk, do any job in any manner necessary in any country. But they are often egoistic and lack the bigger picture beyond immediate personal needs.

It seems to me that a revolutionary movement would become really dangerous when these two sections join together; employed offering the "node" around which the precariat can organize itself. Industrial/service sector would be responsible for the continuity and "natural selection"; precariat for the evolution and "mutations".

This is of course only my personal impression.

[Luís Henrique]

And I like the term service-factory :)

Indeed... and I wonder what reasons are there to consider a McDonald's shop, for instance, anything else than a factory. It is not just service, not even just productive service, it is industry in its core meaning. The only difference is that production is on immediate demand, but why would that be an important difference?

Luís Henrique

[u.s.red]

Indeed... and I wonder what reasons are there to consider a McDonald's shop, for instance, anything else than a factory. It is not just service, not even just productive service, it is industry in its core meaning. The only difference is that production is on immediate demand, but why would that be an important difference?

Luís Henrique

McDonald's might be more of an assembly line production of goods for immediate consumption. McDonald's is also part of a gigantic monopoly of fast food production, which controls its own prices, the price it sells, controls its own market, etc. Sort of the fast food cartel with Burger King, Wendy's, KFC, etc.