Labor aristocracy
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"Labor aristocracy" (or "aristocracy of labor") has two meanings: as a term with Marxist theoretical underpinnings, and as a specific type of trade unionism.
Use within Marxism
In Marxist theory, those workers (proletarians) in developed countries who benefit from the superprofits extracted from the impoverished workers of underdeveloped countries form an "aristocracy of labor." The phrase was popularised by Karl Kautsky in 1901 and theorised by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin's theory contends that companies in the developed world exploit workers in the developing world (where wages are much lower), resulting in increased profits. Because of these increased profits, the companies are able to pay higher wages to their employees "at home" (that is, in the developed world), thus creating a working class satisfied with their standard of living and not inclined to proletarian revolution. Lenin thus contended that imperialism had prevented increasing class polarization in the developed world, and argued that a workers' revolution could only begin in one of the underdeveloped or semideveloped countries, such as Russia. This theory of the labour aristocracy is controversial in the Marxist movement.
While this theory is formally shared by most currents that identify positively with Lenin, including the Communist International, few organisations place the theory at the centre of their work. The term is most widely used in the United States, where it was popularised in the decade prior to the First World War by Eugene Debs' Socialist Party, and the Industrial Workers of the World. In Britain those who hold to this theory include the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) and the Revolutionary Communist Group. Many Trotskyists, including Leon Trotsky himself, and the early congresses of the Fourth International, have accepted the theory of the labour aristocracy: others, including Ernest Mandel and Tony Cliff, considered the theory to have mistaken arguments or "Third Worldist" implications.
Criticism of unions
The term was originally coined by Mikhail Bakunin in 1872 as a criticism of the notion that organised workers are the most radical. Bakunin wrote: "To me the flower of the proletariat is not, as it is to the Marxists, the upper layer, the aristocracy of labor, those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers."
In the U.S. and Britain, the term "aristocracy of labor" is used as an implicit criticism of labor unions that have organized high-salary workers and have no interest in unionizing middle-income and lower-income employees--even in cases where organizing the unorganized would strengthen the unions involved. These unions, it is argued, are content to remain a "labor aristocracy." Examples might include the unions of professional athletes, which have raised the wages of a certain class of already highly paid workers--professional athletes--but refuse to organize other workers, including other employees of the teams they work for. It commonly charged that the Air Line Pilots Association, the Screen Actors Guild, and a handful of other AFL-CIO unions conform to the labor aristocracy model of trade unionism. In defense of these unions, the AFL-CIO's jurisdictional rules may forbid such unions from organizing workers in certain occupational classes.
External links
- Mikhail Bakunin [On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx]. "the aristocracy of labor, those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers..."
- Karl Kautsky [Trades Unions and Socialism]. A "guild-like character shows itself first of all in that the workingmen organized in trades unions form and constitute, similar to the old-time Journeymen organized in guilds, an aristocracy of labor, which isolates itself from the unorganized workingmen, which raises itself above them, which pushes them down the deeper into the social mire, the quicker it elevates itself."
- V. I. Lenin, [Opportunism, and the Collapse of the Second International]. "To the bourgeoisie (imperialist war) brings higher profits; to a thin crust of the labour bureaucracy and aristocracy, and also to the petty bourgeoisie (the intelligentsia, etc.) which “travels” with the working-class movement, it promises morsels of those profits."
- Leon Trotsky, [Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay]. Reformism "is in complete harmony with the social position of the labor aristocracy "
- Charlie Post, [Ernest Mandel and the Marxian Theory of Bureaucracy]. Argues that "the better paid workers of the “north” are more exploited than the poorly paid workers of the “south.”"
- Tony Cliff, [Economic roots of reformism]. "No capitalist says to the workers: “I have made high profits this year, so I am ready to give you higher wages.”"
- David Yaffe, [The labour aristocracy and imperialism'']. This is the first part of a talk given by David Yaffe to the Free University of Turkey in Zurich on 13 May 2001
Further reading
- Steve Clark, The Aristocracy of Labor: Development of the Marxist Position, in New International no. 2
See also
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