Remember Labor Anyone?
Thanks to Bitch Lab for referring me to this article by Christopher Hayes at In These Times who covered the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas. His article, entitled “What Was Missing At Yearly Kos,” describes his encounter with Lou, a retired union man from Steubenville, Ohio, a once booming steel mill town who sat next to him on the plane to Vegas.
For Hayes, Lou exposed the disappearing “critique of capitalism” in the American left. During their converstation, as Lou describes his union days, he makes the following conclusion:
“….Now they’ll tell you that’s Marxism, but that’s just because the American people have been brainwashed into thinking that Capital is more important than Labor. But it’s Labor that creates all wealth!”
First, for those of you running for the exits because the word Marxism was mentioned, stop, back-up, and read a bit longer. Because whatever you have to say or think about Karl Marx, one thing that cannot be argued, is that he wrote one of the most simple and accurate descriptions of Capitalism that exists in The Communist Manifesto. Its a system of exploitation pure and simple, but if that word makes you nervous or causes your knee to jerk, try consumption instead.
But let’s go back to Lou’s statement. Labor creates all wealth. In the simpliest terms, labor produces wealth and then wealth is either consumed or used as capital to produce more wealth. Labor creates wealth indeed. That Lou!
Hayes goes on to mention the dissappointment of labor leaders who attended YearlyKos with the lack of reciprocation they felt:
In a post on DailyKos after the convention, labor expert Nathan Newman wrote, “The labor movement actually took YearlyKos very seriously, contributing money to help subsidize costs and sending top leaders to attend the sessions. … I know that the labor leaders were a bit frustrated that their interest in the blogosphere was not reciprocated.”
The progressive liberal movement, netroots or otherwise, needs a strong ogranized labor component to win elections and effect changes to laws and policy. As noted by Barbara Ehrenreich and Thomas Geoghegan in their article “Lighting Labor’s Fire” published in The Nation , union membership has declined from 38% to just 9% since the mid-fifties, and our laws have made forming and joining unions very difficult. But without a strong labor movement, Ehrenreich and Geoghegan ask if all we’ll be left to do is sit around and “…snicker at Bush and all the Bush clones to come?”
Nevada is more fortunate than many states to have a strong organized labor base, because it helps keep wages for skilled and unskilled workers up despite the fact that many of the positions they fill do not require college degrees or even high school diplomas. As The Gleaner noted in his post to YearlyKos attendees, labor unions are the only reason Southern Nevada (and other parts to) has a middle class at all. And you when you remember that Nevada also has one of the lowest high school graduation and college continuation rates in the country, well, let’s just say our economy needs the unions.
Hayes concludes:
YearlyKos made it clear that the netroots is a vanguard—a smart, savvy, compassionate and courageous vanguard, but a vanguard nonetheless. There’s nothing wrong with vanguards, but they do not a majority make.
So while we may need to strengthen the voice of bloggers, we also need to find a way to make a lot more Lous.
Indeed.
Similar Posts:
- Strength of Organized Labor in Nevada Backfires on Caucus?
- We Hate Unions, Screw the U.S. Economy
- Liberals Divided on Immigration
Enjoy this post? Leave a comment below or subscribe to my feed. You also can sign up for email delivery by clicking here.
labor? what’s that? heh. the funny thing is, we’re supposed to give up reproductive rights so we can get down with the people who supposedly want meat and potatoes democrats. So, how exactly is it that they’re forgetting about labor unions?!
I know N Newman fairly well. I made him quit a discussion list with some pointed questions about why he think ppl shouldn’t read Zizek b/c he’s a waste of time. SEE! I do so love/hate zizek.
At any rate, Newman was going on about how ppl shouldn’t waste their time, Zizek didn’t do anything for people and had nothing to say about practically matters — which I think is dead wrong. People need how to name the problem and sometimes they have to start there. Public intellectuals like Zizek can help people do that by using pop culture to elucidate concepts.
But NN wants to be the arbiter of what people read based on some nebulous claims about Zizek not being “useful.”
It always irritates me when someone who has read a theorist decides to tell the masses that they shouldn’t.
And it irritates me that men (especially) reduce what’s useful to winning elections — or so it seems. As if politics isn’t about a whole lot more!
Babbling brook today!
I agree that the whole “theorists don’t contribute anything real” is a bogus argument…it may take some time, but if a theory is any good, it finds a way to bubble up to a practical use in some form or another. Someone reads about, it generates a thought, and they are able to combine with another theory or idea, or action, and that makes it real Inspiration is a funny thing that way–often not easy to follow so you cant reduce the sources.
And of course, who thinks they should get to decide what’s a waste of time for anyone else…..what a presumption.
And you know, I am still trying to figure out where I stand on the whole dkos institution. I see the good and the bad, but all I’m left with is ambivalence. Particularly now that there are some perceived threats–the behavior and discourse has become interesing to say the least.