Services in a communist society [Archive]

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

8th June 2015, 19:07

First of all I am going to assume there are enough people that would want to fly you to Berlin. If there are not, you are having a bad problem, and will not go to Berlin today.

Another thing that is a bad problem is if your pilot doesn't know what he's doing. If your pilot doesn't know what he's doing, you will not go to Berlin today, or possibly ever. For that reason, there will probably be some sort of certification system. It's not that anyone will be prevented from flying with an untested pilot, for all their weird Thelma and Louise fantasies, but I assume most people don't want to plummet to their deaths.

I assume people are going to work out some sort of schedule according to their inclinations and capacities. This needs to be done at the central level if endless negotiations are to be avoided. Representatives of people who fly frequently and are interested in the schedule and the workers of various airports should probably be involved - as well as representatives of the planning bodies, who will presumably want to ship freight partly by air and so on.

So once the schedule has been agreed upon, since there is a finite number of seats in the airplane, you would probably get a ticket - free, obviously, since there is no money and no markets in socialism - on some basis. "First come first serve" is an immediately obvious rule of thumb, but then again people might decide some classes of people (those who are flying in order to get medical treatment for example) should have an advantage when it comes to ticket allocation.

BIXX

8th June 2015, 19:50

(If I had a girlfriend I would probably be asking why feudalism isn't a good socialist system :unsure: )

Why? I don't get the connection

Blake's Baby

8th June 2015, 20:07

Because he'd have spent all his money on going out with his girlfrien an never even read 'The Wealth of Nations', I'm guessing.

BIXX

8th June 2015, 20:58

Because he'd have spent all his money on going out with his girlfrien an never even read 'The Wealth of Nations', I'm guessing.

That's what I assumed but I wanted him to say it.

Guardia Rossa

8th June 2015, 21:12

Because he'd have spent all his money on going out with his girlfrien an never even read 'The Wealth of Nations', I'm guessing.

Pretty much that.

Guardia Rossa

8th June 2015, 21:13

Bonus round: If I change my material conditions (become labour aristocrat or petit-bourgeois) will I probably change my ideology?

Also: How to categorize a labour aristocrat? One who actually doesn't has surplus value extracted from him/extracts surplus value from other workers by any means?

Blake's Baby

8th June 2015, 21:56

Are you sure you're a 'non-doctrinaire communist'? The only people who believe in the theory of 'labour aristocracy' are particularly reactionary Leninists.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

8th June 2015, 22:34

Are you sure you're a 'non-doctrinaire communist'? The only people who believe in the theory of 'labour aristocracy' are particularly reactionary Leninists.

I'm surprised to hear you say that, to be honest. I think only particularly reactionary "Leninists", i.e. Third-Worldists, think the entire working class of the "First World" (whatever happened to the Second World, nobody cares about the Second World apparently) are part of the labour aristocracy. But to recognise a layer of highly-paid workers that is, together with the labour bureaucracy, part of the "syphilitic chain" by which labour is bound to the interest of the bourgeoisie is surely an elementary Leninist position.

Blake's Baby

9th June 2015, 09:16

Well, I'm not aware of Trotskyists really pushing the 'labour aristocracy' theory. But if you do, then I guess I'll have to remove the 'particularly reactionary' from that and just say 'Leninists'. Because on the whole, while I regard Trotskyism as being reactionary... you're not as bad as the Maoists and other kinds of Stalinists. On the other hand, I regard labour aristocracy theory as being fairly reactionary in itself. So the more Trotskyists push it, the closer they will be to the 'particularly reactionary Leninists' in my estimation.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

9th June 2015, 10:07

Mr. Piccolo

9th June 2015, 11:14

How is the theory that there exists a stratum of labour aristocracy reactionary?

Trotskyists don't "push" the theory, I think, but we definitely acknowledge that such a stratum exists. It's part of the reason we can't have a "party of the entire class" and why opportunism has such a stranglehold on the labour movement - this stratum with a petit-bourgeois outlook.

Yeah, it is hard to deny the existence of the labor aristocracy.

I know its just anecdotal, but if you speak with better-paid workers about things like a higher minimum wage they really show their true colors. The furor over increasing the wages of fast-food workers is one example.

Comrade Jacob

9th June 2015, 12:40

Are you sure you're a 'non-doctrinaire communist'? The only people who believe in the theory of 'labour aristocracy' are particularly reactionary Leninists.

I think he is a Titoist judging by his avatar.

John Nada

10th June 2015, 20:45

Are you sure you're a 'non-doctrinaire communist'? The only people who believe in the theory of 'labour aristocracy' are particularly reactionary Leninists.
The existing organization of the Chartist party is also disintegrating. Those petty bourgeois who are still in the party, allied with the labour aristocracy, form a purely democratic tendency, whose programme is limited to the People's Charter and a few other petty-bourgeois reforms. [70] The mass of the workers living in really proletarian conditions belong to the revolutionary Chartist tendency. At the bead of the first group is Feargus O'Connor; at the head of the second, Julian Harney and Ernest Jones. Old O'Connor, an Irish squire and supposedly a descendant of the old kings of Munster, is, in spite of his ancestry and his political standpoint, a genuine representative of Old England. He is essentially conservative, and feels a highly determined hatred not only for industrial progress but also for the revolution. His ideals are patriarchal and petty-bourgeois through and through. He unites in his person an inexhaustible number of contradictions, which find their fulfillment and harmony in a certain blunt common sense, [71] and which enable him year in year out to write his interminable weekly letters in the Northern Star, each successive letter always in open conflict with the previous one. For this very reason O'Connor claims to be the most consistent man in Great Britain and to have prophesied everything that has happened during the last twenty years. His shoulders, his roaring voice, his great pugilistic skill, with which he is said to have defended Nottingham Market against 20,000 people — all this is an essential part of the representative of Old England. It is clear that a man like O'Connor is bound to be a great obstacle in a revolutionary movement; but such people serve a useful purpose, in that the many old, ingrained prejudices which they embody and propagate disappear with them — with the result that the movement, once it has rid itself of these people, can free itself from these prejudices once and for all. O'Connor will come to grief in the movement; but for that reason he will possess an even stronger claim to the title of 'a martyr in a good cause', like Lamartine and Marrast. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/11/01.htm
“Secondly, the great Trades’ Unions. They are the organisations of those trades in which the labour of grown-up men predominates, or is alone applicable. Here the competition neither of women and children nor of machinery has so far weakened their organised strength. The engineers, the carpenters and joiners, the bricklayers, are each of them a power, to that extent that, as in the case of the bricklayers and bricklayers’ labourers, they can even successfully resist the introduction of machinery. That their condition has remarkably improved since 1848 there can be no doubt, and the best proof of this is in the fact that for more than fifteen years not only have their employers been with them, but they with their employers, upon exceedingly good terms. They form an aristocracy among the working-class; they have succeeded in enforcing for themselves a relatively comfortable position, and they accept it as final. They are the model working-men of Messrs. Leone Levi & Giffen, and they are very nice people indeed nowadays to deal with, for any sensible capitalist in particular and for the whole capitalist class in general. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1892/01/11.htm
Question: What about Ireland? Is there anything — apart from the national question — which might raise the hopes of socialists?

Engels: A purely socialist movement cannot be expected in Ireland for a considerable time. People there want first of all to become peasants owning a plot of land, and after they have achieved that mortgages will appear on the scene and they will be ruined once more. But this should not prevent us from seeking to help them to get rid of their landlords, that is, to pass from semi-feudal conditions to capitalist conditions.

Question: What is the attitude of the English workers towards the Irish movement?

Engels: The masses are for the Irish. The organisations, and the labour aristocracy in general, follow Gladstone and the liberal bourgeois and do not go further than these. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/09/20.htm

Apparently, Engels was a reactionary Leninist even before Lenin was born.:rolleyes: After all, a small minority of privileged, chauvinistic workers allied with the bourgeoisie, that are happy with the temporary concessions at the expense of the rest of workers, with the possibility(real or imagined) of moving up in class, and usually support reformism at best, is Lenin's impossible reactionary mumbo-jumbo.:lol:

G4b3n

10th June 2015, 20:54

We need to understand contemporary capitalism with from an applicable Marxist perspective (which we are failing to do for the most part, even academically), before we speculate on what communism will look like, which is of absolutely no concern to anyone right now.

Blake's Baby

11th June 2015, 08:43

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1850/11/01.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1888/09/20.htm

Apparently, Engels was a reactionary Leninist even before Lenin was born.:rolleyes: After all, a small minority of privileged, chauvinistic workers allied with the bourgeoisie, that are happy with the temporary concessions at the expense of the rest of workers, with the possibility(real or imagined) of moving up in class, and usually support reformism at best, is Lenin's impossible reactionary mumbo-jumbo.:lol:

Only one of those quotes actually explains what Engels thinks a 'labour aristocracy' is - the second one, about the bricklayers' union.

If the point about a 'labour aristocracy' is 'many members of the working class have bourgeois politics', then sure. I confront them every day on RevLeft - loads of people here support the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, all sorts of bourgeois states. I confront them every day at work, loads of people who think that 'this country has to be protected from ... (insert threat ranging from immigrants to the unemployed to gays to single parents here)'. I see them on the news claiming that they'll defend (insert name of country x) against (country y) or that the religious dogma of community A is somehow superior to that of community B.

Is this what you mean by 'aristocracy of labour'? Workers with bourgeois politics? It seems a funny sort of 'aristocracy' that outnumbers the 'non-aristocracy' by millions-to-one.

It seems to me that this isn't what supporters of the idea of a labour aristocracy mean, however.

We need to understand contemporary capitalism with from an applicable Marxist perspective (which we are failing to do for the most part, even academically), before we speculate on what communism will look like, which is of absolutely no concern to anyone right now.

I don't think this is true. We certainly need to critique capitalism, no argument there. But I think the rest of the working class is certainly in a position to ridicule us if we say 'the house smells of shit - let's burn it down' and when they ask 'where do you propose we live?' we say 'let's worry about when we're standing in the smoking ruins'.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

11th June 2015, 13:46

Only one of those quotes actually explains what Engels thinks a 'labour aristocracy' is - the second one, about the bricklayers' union.

If the point about a 'labour aristocracy' is 'many members of the working class have bourgeois politics', then sure. I confront them every day on RevLeft - loads of people here support the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, all sorts of bourgeois states. I confront them every day at work, loads of people who think that 'this country has to be protected from ... (insert threat ranging from immigrants to the unemployed to gays to single parents here)'. I see them on the news claiming that they'll defend (insert name of country x) against (country y) or that the religious dogma of community A is somehow superior to that of community B.

Is this what you mean by 'aristocracy of labour'? Workers with bourgeois politics? It seems a funny sort of 'aristocracy' that outnumbers the 'non-aristocracy' by millions-to-one.

It seems to me that this isn't what supporters of the idea of a labour aristocracy mean, however.

Well, no, we mean a small stratum of highly-paid workers, temporarily bought off by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries using imperialist superprofits, petit-bourgeois in outlook, and instrumental in shackling the rest of the workers to bourgeois politics - the people who made up the most active element in WWI-era SPD for example.

What I don't understand is how this theory is reactionary, even by left communist standards. I understand how the "Third Worldist" notion of labour aristocracy - which is definitely not the same as Lenin's - is reactionary: it's nationalist guff intended to make excuses for various "Third World" bourgeois figures. But that doesn't really apply to the general Leninist notion of labour aristocracy.

I don't think this is true. We certainly need to critique capitalism, no argument there. But I think the rest of the working class is certainly in a position to ridicule us if we say 'the house smells of shit - let's burn it down' and when they ask 'where do you propose we live?' we say 'let's worry about when we're standing in the smoking ruins'.

I think people imagine they are being more "scientific" when they refuse to talk about the socialist society. That's pretty ridiculous, of course; socialism is a positive project, not just "burn everything down".

Blake's Baby

11th June 2015, 21:16

Well, no, we mean a small stratum of highly-paid workers, temporarily bought off by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries using imperialist superprofits, petit-bourgeois in outlook, and instrumental in shackling the rest of the workers to bourgeois politics - the people who made up the most active element in WWI-era SPD for example.

What I don't understand is how this theory is reactionary, even by left communist standards. I understand how the "Third Worldist" notion of labour aristocracy - which is definitely not the same as Lenin's - is reactionary: it's nationalist guff intended to make excuses for various "Third World" bourgeois figures. But that doesn't really apply to the general Leninist notion of labour aristocracy...

By 'left communist standards' the phrase 'imperialist countries' is a tautology for a start, because imperialism isn't a policy, it's a dynamic... so 'imperialist countries' is the same as saying 'countries'.

"...a small stratum of highly-paid workers, temporarily bought off by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries using imperialist superprofits, petit-bourgeois in outlook, and instrumental in shackling the rest of the workers to bourgeois politics..."

= "workers with bourgeois politics". Which is what I said in the first place. As, to Left Communists, 'bourgeois politics' includes Leninism, the vast majority of the working class must be part of the so-called 'aristocracy'. We don't think workers are dumb sheep with the wrong leaders. So no, I don't think there's much acceptance of a notion of ideological jailors of the working class bought off with 'imperialist superprofits', whatever they are. Plenty of acceptance that the working class, especially I think in the US, is petit-bourgeois in outlook. But, on that explanation, I guess Jay Leno is probably the best exemplar of the notion of a 'labour aristocrat'.

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

12th June 2015, 05:26

By 'left communist standards' the phrase 'imperialist countries' is a tautology for a start, because imperialism isn't a policy, it's a dynamic... so 'imperialist countries' is the same as saying 'countries'.

"...a small stratum of highly-paid workers, temporarily bought off by the bourgeoisie of the imperialist countries using imperialist superprofits, petit-bourgeois in outlook, and instrumental in shackling the rest of the workers to bourgeois politics..."

= "workers with bourgeois politics". Which is what I said in the first place. As, to Left Communists, 'bourgeois politics' includes Leninism, the vast majority of the working class must be part of the so-called 'aristocracy'. We don't think workers are dumb sheep with the wrong leaders. So no, I don't think there's much acceptance of a notion of ideological jailors of the working class bought off with 'imperialist superprofits', whatever they are. Plenty of acceptance that the working class, especially I think in the US, is petit-bourgeois in outlook. But, on that explanation, I guess Jay Leno is probably the best exemplar of the notion of a 'labour aristocrat'.

Be that as it may, you haven't really answered the question, which I think is a shame. And no, the labour aristocracy are not simply workers with bourgeois politics. As you say, the vast majority of workers have bourgeois politics. This, to be honest, doesn't upset me, as, first of all, the old cliche about the ruling ideas of each epoch holds, and second, I think communist politics is radically a minority politics. That's neither here nor there. The Leninist notion of a labour aristocracy is not based on the ideas these people hold but on their material status. There is a layer, the theory contends, of highly-paid workers, in imperialist countries, whose high pay ties their interest in the short term to that of "their" bourgeoisie. Now the theory might be wrong - but how do we explain the SPD etc. then? But what I wanted to know is how on Earth is the theory supposed to be reactionary.

And of course there are imperialist countries. Imperialism is a phase of capitalist development. But there are countries where the ownership of the imperialist syndicates and cartels are concentrated, and countries where these find their market. You're trying to avoid a nationalist conclusion by denying reality - obviously the way in which capitalism manifests is not the same in an imperialist power like the US, the UK or Germany, a secondary power like Greece, and a neo-colony like Iraq. This does not mean that the bourgeoisie of the neo-colonies is to be supported. Obviously they are themselves part of the imperialist system.

Blake's Baby

12th June 2015, 09:12

LuÃs Henrique

13th June 2015, 01:42

Bonus round: If I change my material conditions (become labour aristocrat or petit-bourgeois) will I probably change my ideology?

Depends on how solid your convictions are. Are they solid?

Also: How to categorize a labour aristocrat? One who actually doesn't has surplus value extracted from him/extracts surplus value from other workers by any means?

A labour aristocrat is a member of the union bureaucracy. In a sociological sence, ie, not just someone who has a position in a union board, but someone who is able to make such position a way of life.

Luís Henrique

LuÃs Henrique

13th June 2015, 01:54

How would, for example, someone from Brazil (like me) travel to Berlin?

By plane, if you are in a hurry; by ship, if you are not.

Or by some novel technological gadget still to be invented.

Would the flights be free? How would they be organized?

The category of "free" only makes sence in a market economy: some things are "free" because the general rule is that things are paid for.

They will be organised by people who are interested in flying planes and navigating ships. There are two reasons that I cannot give a detailed description: first, I am really not interested in these aspects of human activity, so I have never studied or even read enough about the subject to give an informed answer; and, second, I suspect that the organisation of these activities may become very different in a post-revolutionary society.

And other services? How will they be organized?

In a quite superficial level, in the same way as traveling: by the people interested in these trades. Which is also the same as the production and distribution of products (as opposed to services), by the way.

Specific answers quite probably vary according to the different, concrete nature of the services (or products). Some may simply disappear, especially if they are only useful in a capitalist society (I fear the ancient and noble activity of bookkeeping, for instance, may become obsolete).

I'm sorry for this stupid questions, can't afford Das Kapital or V,P,P, just good old History of the wealth of nations (If I had a girlfriend I would probably be asking why feudalism isn't a good socialist system :unsure: )

I am pretty sure you would have been given a nice new copy of O Capital today, if you had a girlfriend!

Luís Henrique

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

14th June 2015, 23:19

I did mention Jay Leno, who is (was?) highly paid as a mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie.

He (and people like him) are the best exemplars of your theory I'd think. If anyone is a 'worker... whose position is to tie other workers to capitalism' it's surely those who serve as mouthpieces of the ruling class.

As to what question I'm not answering, I'm not really sure.

I'm afraid I don't know much about Jay Leno. You see, I've always found talk shows to be soul-crushingly boring, never mind the fact that I don't have a soul. But what little I know of the man leads me to conclude that he is not part of the class of dispossessed direct producers.

And it might well be that Jay Leno serves as the mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie. I don't think that's particularly important, though. Certainly the people we need to worry about serve, not as mouthpieces but as transmission belts, transmitting the demands of the bourgeoisie to the workers, and as scaffolding that supports the edifice of the capitalist state even though it's rotten to the core. And they do so even though some of them consider themselves to be socialists, communists, anarchists, whatever.

As for examples of the labour aristocracy, I have to admit I don't really have any go-to examples, because the labour aristocracy isn't as important to us as the theory of the same name is for Maoists, and because the nature of the labour aristocracy - unlike the labour bureaucracy, which we distinguish from the labour aristocracy - is such that it's a volatile layer, always in danger of being pushed down within the proletariat as the condition of the world markets changes. Harry Turner, the old Spartacist leader, would have us believe that dress cutters and pressers formed such a layer in the garment industry before being ejected, partly due to an influx of semi-skilled Puerto Rican labour.

And the question you're not answering is, of course, why the theory that there exists a labour aristocracy is reactionary.

ckaihatsu

15th June 2015, 02:29

Consider that, since nothing in a communist society is 'owned', as in the sense of private property, there can be no 'ownership' or *commodification* of *goods*.

Since goods would not be commodities and would not pass from hand to hand through any series of exchanges (as with using money), that means that a communist society would *finally* realize a manifestation of the truth that labor is what creates *everything* -- including goods that do not need to be put through exchanges. (Production could be centralized at the broadest scales possible, even globally, and coordinated so that all production goes directly from the source, to the destination, without any interceding 'middlemen' exchanges along the way -- 'direct distribution'. Everything that's available would be 'free access'.)

So, to boil it down, all (liberated) labor in a communist society would either be *services*, in the conventional sense of the term that we see today, or else labor would be *production services*, meaning that it would be a service to society that happens to produce tangible objects, as from industrial mass production.

To your question, if a communist society was able to transcend all market production and fulfill virtually all needs and wants on a sheerly voluntary basis, that would be a 'gift economy', since all resulting goods and services would effectively be 'gifts' to the general public, for egalitarian consumption.

More to the point, I would argue, is what would happen if, in a communist context, you *couldn't* find a way to fly from Brazil to Berlin. This would be a 'system failure' of sorts, and would have to be comprehensively addressed somehow, in a collectivist way -- otherwise it would effectively be a *weakening* of the revolutionary society and its socio-political cohesion.

The *worst* case would be that those who want to fly from Brazil to Berlin (etc.) would become *so* frustrated with the situation that it would bring about a change in their social politics, and even lead to backsliding to black markets to fill in the economic-material void.

The 'Diamonds in a Marxist society?' (http://www.revleft.com/vb/diamonds-marxist-societyi-t193212/index.html) thread has been going on for some time now, and it deals with the issue of how a post-capitalist social order would ensure the supply of something (goods and/or services) when *no one* in that society has any personal inclination to do the required work to make that happen. And, even if there *was* a solid subset of the population that *was* willing to do the work that no one else was willing to do, *that* would be problematic because they would effectively be *exploited*, over that particular thing, since they could otherwise *not* do it and still have the same access to society's fruits of production. In that case, there would be some kind of social-material *reciprocity* that's lacking.

Blake's Baby

15th June 2015, 08:49

I'm afraid I don't know much about Jay Leno. You see, I've always found talk shows to be soul-crushingly boring, never mind the fact that I don't have a soul. But what little I know of the man leads me to conclude that he is not part of the class of dispossessed direct producers.

And it might well be that Jay Leno serves as the mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie. I don't think that's particularly important, though. Certainly the people we need to worry about serve, not as mouthpieces but as transmission belts, transmitting the demands of the bourgeoisie to the workers, and as scaffolding that supports the edifice of the capitalist state even though it's rotten to the core. And they do so even though some of them consider themselves to be socialists, communists, anarchists, whatever.

As for examples of the labour aristocracy, I have to admit I don't really have any go-to examples, because the labour aristocracy isn't as important to us as the theory of the same name is for Maoists, and because the nature of the labour aristocracy - unlike the labour bureaucracy, which we distinguish from the labour aristocracy - is such that it's a volatile layer, always in danger of being pushed down within the proletariat as the condition of the world markets changes. Harry Turner, the old Spartacist leader, would have us believe that dress cutters and pressers formed such a layer in the garment industry before being ejected, partly due to an influx of semi-skilled Puerto Rican labour.

And the question you're not answering is, of course, why the theory that there exists a labour aristocracy is reactionary.

I don't know much about Jay Leno either. But he's a mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie (or he was, apparently his show isn't on TV any more).

I don't really understand what your theory is I'm afraid. If you're separating 'labour aristocracy' and 'labour bureaucracy'... I don't much see the difference.

But, to entangle the parts - it looks like the theory you're outlining is this: there are two strata of the working class, the 'labour bureaucracy' and the 'labour aristocracy', that are involved with replicating bourgeois ideology in the working class, at least one of one of which (the LA) is 'bribed' by 'imperialist super-profits' generated by the exploitation by the 'imperialist countries' of the ?'non-imperialist countries', but that the LA itself is constantly changing.

Is that about accurate?

BTW we're a long way from 'services in a communist society', perhaps we could request a mod splits off our discussion on 'labour aristocracy theory'?

John Nada

15th June 2015, 12:31

I don't know much about Jay Leno either. But he's a mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie (or he was, apparently his show isn't on TV any more).Jay Leno owns his own production company, hires workers and is a multimillionaire. He's bourgeois.
I don't really understand what your theory is I'm afraid. If you're separating 'labour aristocracy' and 'labour bureaucracy'... I don't much see the difference.Labor bureaucracy are the union officials,"capitalists' lieutenants of labor". An example is AFL founder Samuel Gompers, who pushed for "business union", literal fought and drove out Communist and anarchists, and excluded women, immigrants, POC and unskilled workers. Perfect man the bourgeoisie could work with, unlike the IWW.

Labor aristocracy is a small upper stratum of workers "bought off" in that they get higher-pay, more benefits and a stabler career compared to the supermajority of workers, even in "their own" country. Usually under the leadership of the labor bureaucracy or the state, but also through corporate.

It's not workers who're reactionary assholes. It's not every white first-worlder, like the revisionist third-worldist claim.They don't go sign an employment contract stating the bourgeoisie will pay in superprofits directly from Nigerian and Indonesian kids' tears in exchange for lifetime bourgeoisfication. Rather, their class relations are moved closer to allying with the bourgeois via their productive relations which puts them in a more privileged position relative to the majority of the proletariat.
But, to entangle the parts - it looks like the theory you're outlining is this: there are two strata of the working class, the 'labour bureaucracy' and the 'labour aristocracy', that are involved with replicating bourgeois ideology in the working class, at least one of one of which (the LA) is 'bribed' by 'imperialist super-profits' generated by the exploitation by the 'imperialist countries' of the ?'non-imperialist countries', but that the LA itself is constantly changing.

Is that about accurate?"Non-imperialist" countries do not reap the profits from "imperialist" countries super-explioting "their" workers. Only a small puppet bourgeoisie collaborating with the "imperialist countries" bourgeoisie does. Colonies and neo-colonies aren't just for imperialist capitalists amusement. The US isn't just bombing, throwing bodies into the meat grinder, and spending hundreds of billions just to look good. It's a way to raise the rate of profit.

The labor aristocracy and labor bureaucracy isn't some hypnotized state of mind where some capitalist drives up and throws bags of Iraqi oil super-profits at a worker, magically brainwashing him/her just to fuck with everyone. In fact they can still be revolutionary, just like peasants and petty-bourgeoisie can be revolutionaries or not. Class is not static, so like the peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie, labor aristocrats can be thrown down into the proletariat proper, or rarely move up.

As for them "spreading bourgeois ideas". It has nothing to do with workers running around saying reactionary shit. The likes of Kautsky and Bernstein viewed them as the main force of the proletariat, and catered to the labor aristocracy at the expense of the proletariat. And the labor aristocracy and labor bueacracy has sided with imperialism repeatedly. Example such as helping the US's attempted coup in Venezuela, and working with South American governments against unions persived as too leftist http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/05/the-afl-cio-and-the-colombia/

Blake's Baby

15th June 2015, 19:57

Jay leno is a re herring. I picked him as someone who is, or rather was, paid to be be a mouthpiece for the bourgeoisie. As you say, he has joined the bourgeoisie. But he was meant to epitomise a type - workers whose job is to push bourgeois ideology.

There are no 'non-imperialist' countries. Imperialism isn't a set of policies that a country can chose to adopt or not, it's a dynamic inherent in the current stage of capitalism. So all the stuff about 'imperialist super-profits' is pretty meaningless.

John Nada

16th June 2015, 00:59

Jay leno is a re herring. I picked him as someone who is, or rather was, paid to be be a mouthpiece for the bourgeoisie. As you say, he has joined the bourgeoisie. But he was meant to epitomise a type - workers whose job is to push bourgeois ideology.He's a poor example of either the labor aristocracy or a bourgeois propagandist. His jokes on his show were considered "safer", though slightly left-liberal. Not overt like left-liberals such as Bill Maher or Jon Stewart. When he got to the point where he had a platform to "push bourgeois ideology"(more subtle than overt, not much more than most of TV), he was bourgeois.
There are no 'non-imperialist' countries. Imperialism isn't a set of policies that a country can chose to adopt or not, it's a dynamic inherent in the current stage of capitalism. So all the stuff about 'imperialist super-profits' is pretty meaningless.Capitalism's development is uneven. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. There is dominate nations that have reached that stage, like the US or France, and subjugated nations that have not, like El Salvador or Afghanistan. El Salvador and Afghanistan are not monopoly capitalist. It's absurd to claim they have the same level of development as Germany and the UK.

And what is reactionary about the theory of the labor aristocracy?

Blake's Baby

16th June 2015, 01:24

He's a poor example of either the labor aristocracy or a bourgeois propagandist...

Hey, I was trying to help your incoherent theory. Don't blame me if it doesn't make sense.

... His jokes on his show were considered "safer", though slightly left-liberal. Not overt like left-liberals such as Bill Maher or Jon Stewart. When he got to the point where he had a platform to "push bourgeois ideology"(more subtle than overt, not much more than most of TV), he was bourgeois...

He had a TV show, he had a platform to push bourgeois ideology, he pushed bourgeois ideology.

... Capitalism's development is uneven. Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. There is dominate nations that have reached that stage, like the US or France, and subjugated nations that have not, like El Salvador or Afghanistan. El Salvador and Afghanistan are not monopoly capitalist. It's absurd to claim they have the same level of development as Germany and the UK...

Who did?

Imperialism is a dynamic of capitalism, and capitalism is a world system, so imperialism is endemic to all countries. There are successful imperialisms, like France and the US, and there are unsuccessful imperialisms, like Afghanistan and El Salvador.

... And what is reactionary about the theory of the labor aristocracy?

Apart from the garbage about 'imperialist' and 'non-imperialist' countries, the notion that the working class in the western countries is complicit in capitalism.

John Nada

16th June 2015, 05:55

Hey, I was trying to help your incoherent theory. Don't blame me if it doesn't make sense.It's not my theory, but Engels, as well as many other Marxist theories across tendencies. Nor do I think they need help. If it's incoherent that's on you.
He had a TV show, he had a platform to push bourgeois ideology, he pushed bourgeois ideology.Little to nothing to do with the labor aristocracy/bureaucracy. Better example would be Ronald Reagan, head of the Screen Actor's Guild, who snitched on suspected communist and sympathizers.
Who did?It's absurd to claim that colonies and neo-colonies are imperialist capitalist.
Imperialism is a dynamic of capitalism, and capitalism is a world system, so imperialism is endemic to all countries. There are successful imperialisms, like France and the US, and there are unsuccessful imperialisms, like Afghanistan and El Salvador.A tribe in the Congo or Amazon rainforest is not even in the capitalist phase, even if imperialist capitalism dominates the world. Capitalism can and has existed besides societies with more primitive development, including non-capitalist such as feudalistic or hunter-gathers, though less so in the modern imperialist capitalism stage.

What characteristics does El Salvador and Afghanistan have that make them imperialist capitalist? Advance industry, no. Monopolies, no. Dominate financial sector, don't even think either has much of a stock exchange, if at all. Colonies, no. Yet both are suppliers of raw material, markets to dump on, and rent via loans. They're a source of revenue for the dominate countries that are imperialist capitalist.

In theory France and the US could go to shit and end up subjugated colonies, and El Salvador and Afghanistan could become mighty imperialist powers, with their superior technology. Hell, I'm of the opinion that China has become imperialist. But that doesn't seem likely to happen.
Apart from the garbage about 'imperialist' and 'non-imperialist' countries, the notion that the working class in the western countries is complicit in capitalism.Imperialist countries do exist, their colonies are not imperialist.The working class is not composed of saints that are magically revolutionary 100% of the time. There is people, including former and current workers, who are complicit with imperialist capitalism. The bourgeoisie wouldn't last a day if no one was complicit. The Labor aristocracy is only a minority of the working class in imperialist countries that does benefit(along with the petty-bourgeoisie and big bougeoisie), and tends to(but not always) be more complicit. Nor does the theory that there is an upper stratum of workers say all the workers are guilty of being complicit.

Sewer Socialist

16th June 2015, 07:15

I think a good example of a labor aristocracy in action would be the AFL-CIO construction union organizing the beating of anti-war protestors in the '70s.

Blake's Baby

16th June 2015, 08:22

In which case, what's the difference between the 'labour aristocracy' and 'labour bureaucracy'?

And where's the evidence that the union was paid from 'imperialist super-profits'?

And what's the excuse of nationalist gangs in 'non-imperialist countries [sic]'?

Anglo-Saxon Philistine

16th June 2015, 08:48

I don't know much about Jay Leno either. But he's a mouthpiece of the bourgeoisie (or he was, apparently his show isn't on TV any more).

I don't really understand what your theory is I'm afraid. If you're separating 'labour aristocracy' and 'labour bureaucracy'... I don't much see the difference.

The labour aristocracy is temporary, with certain jobs in certain sectors being elevated into the labour aristocracy and subsequently being pushed down as the state of the market changes; the labour bureaucracy is permanent and tied to a specific task, administering the unions as "labour lieutenants of the bourgeoisie".

But, to entangle the parts - it looks like the theory you're outlining is this: there are two strata of the working class, the 'labour bureaucracy' and the 'labour aristocracy', that are involved with replicating bourgeois ideology in the working class, at least one of one of which (the LA) is 'bribed' by 'imperialist super-profits' generated by the exploitation by the 'imperialist countries' of the ?'non-imperialist countries', but that the LA itself is constantly changing.

Is that about accurate?

The point is not that the labour aristocracy replicates bourgeois ideology in the proletariat. Workers of all strata are inculcated with bourgeois ideology from their kindergarten years; the labour aristocracy has little if anything to do with that. The point is that the labour aristocracy acts as a direct agent of capital in weakening workers' solidarity and workers' struggles.

BTW we're a long way from 'services in a communist society', perhaps we could request a mod splits off our discussion on 'labour aristocracy theory'?

Perhaps. I wouldn't mind, and in fact I would like to see more discussion of the original question, but unfortunately I don't think people are likely to post about services in a communist society. The current fashion is to treat communism like the Almohads treated god, to not predicate anything of it.

There are no 'non-imperialist' countries. Imperialism isn't a set of policies that a country can chose to adopt or not, it's a dynamic inherent in the current stage of capitalism. So all the stuff about 'imperialist super-profits' is pretty meaningless.

Imperialism is a phase of capitalist development, sure, but that doesn't mean every capitalist enterprise is imperialist in the sense that it is part of a cartel, tied to financial oligarchies, exporting capital and dividing the world markets between itself and rival cartels. In fact it's pretty easy to see that if every enterprise was like this, the entire system would collapse. No, only some members of the bourgeoisie are able to participate in these cartels, and they're concentrated in the so-called imperialist powers, where they are the most important section of the bourgeoisie.

Imperialism is a dynamic of capitalism, and capitalism is a world system, so imperialism is endemic to all countries. There are successful imperialisms, like France and the US, and there are unsuccessful imperialisms, like Afghanistan and El Salvador.

In the sense in which a corpse is an unsuccessfully living person. I think the differences between El Salvador and France are obvious to anyone. In fact if you approach the problem by assuming there is an imperialist bourgeoisie in El Salvador but they're all just too damn stupid for their own good, you won't be able to make sense of the history of the place at all. Why would one section of the bourgeoisie, for example, willingly subject itself to another, if they're all of the same kind? It doesn't make sense.

Apart from the garbage about 'imperialist' and 'non-imperialist' countries, the notion that the working class in the western countries is complicit in capitalism.

Of course it is. The working class is complicit in capitalism to a large degree - not just in western countries but in eastern countries, northern countries, southern countries and whatever. The point is not to go into moral fits over this (if anyone imagines proletarians are angels, they should probably quit revolutionary politics) but to analyse the situation.

Or perhaps you're talking about the old Maoist canard that WHITE WORKER$$$ IN THE UNITED $$$NAKE$$$ OF AMERIKKKA ARE ALL LABOR ARI$$$TOKKKRATS, which is a theory no one supports, or takes seriously here. Just like we don't support some sort of Corradinian nationalism that states the non-imperialist countries are to be supported (supporting a country generally meaning supporting its bourgeoisie).

ckaihatsu

16th June 2015, 23:43

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More to the point, I would argue, is what would happen if, in a communist context, you *couldn't* find a way to fly from Brazil to Berlin. This would be a 'system failure' of sorts, and would have to be comprehensively addressed somehow, in a collectivist way -- otherwise it would effectively be a *weakening* of the revolutionary society and its socio-political cohesion.

The *worst* case would be that those who want to fly from Brazil to Berlin (etc.) would become *so* frustrated with the situation that it would bring about a change in their social politics, and even lead to backsliding to black markets to fill in the economic-material void.

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Planning would be required *regardless* -- that's what collectivism is.

Recall that if *no one* would freely contribute their liberated labor to provide a particular service or productive service, the communistic 'commons' would be *jeopardized* because then there *would* be an advantage to the mode of production with private property ownership over natural resources, over the means of production, and a system of commodified labor with wages -- black markets, in other words. (People who desperately want diamonds would gladly go along with the social reality of private mines, a cash economy, cash wages, and currency payments for diamonds if the collectivist mode of production was lagging too much on all of this, or whatever else.)

Some actually *advocate* leaving 'fringe' goods to the markets (I even have an illustration of this, f.y.i.):

Multi-Tiered System of Productive and Consumptive Zones for a Post-Capitalist Political Economy

http://s6.postimg.org/cp6z6ed81/Multi_Tiered_System_of_Productive_and_Consumptiv.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/ccfl07uy5/full/)

I don't. That's why I developed the labor credits framework, to keep things under the umbrella of collectivism even when personal inclinations fall short.

labor credits framework for 'communist supply & demand'

http://s6.postimg.org/nfpj758c0/150221_labor_credits_framework_for_communist_su.jp g (http://postimg.org/image/p7ii21rot/full/)