I found these quotes from Old Man Trotsky on the Labor Aristocracy. What think you guys on this topic? I don't see many Trotskyists groups discussing what to do about the Labor Aristocracy. "Such, in its main features, is the material power of the United States. It is this power that permits the American capitalists to follow the old practice of the British bourgeoisie: fatten the labor aristocracy in order to keep the proletariat shackled. They have entered into this practice to such a degree of perfection as the British bourgeoisie would never even have dared to consider." "For what does America need? She needs to secure her profits at the expense of the European toiling masses, and thus render stable the privileged position of the upper crust of the American working-class. Without the American labor aristocracy, American capitalism cannot maintain itself. Failing Gompers and his trade unions, failing the skilled well-paid workers, the political regime of American capitalism will plunge into the abyss. But it is possible to keep the American labor aristocracy in its privileged position only by placing the “plebians,” the proletarian “rabble” of Europe on rations of cold and hunger, rations rigidly fixed and stingily weighed. The further this development unfolds along this road, all the more difficult will it be for the European Social Democracy to uphold the evangel of Americanism in the eyes of the European working masses. All the more centralized will become the resistance of European labor against the master of masters, against American capitalism." "Monopoly capitalism is less and less willing to reconcile itself to the independence of trade unions. It demands of the reformist bureaucracy and the labor aristocracy who pick the crumbs from its banquet table, that they become transformed into its political police before the eyes of the working class. If that is not achieved, the labor bureaucracy is driven away and replaced by the fascists. Incidentally, all the efforts of the labor aristocracy in the service of imperialism cannot in the long run save them from destruction." I found this on marxists.org, btw.
