One caution, though, Martin,
Let's not write off all the unemployed/underemployed as lumpens just
yet! The lumpen category applies more to a state of consciousness, to a
giving up and sinking into a lifestyle of criminality that makes one reject
seeking "honest" employment even when it becomes available. I think that
just as in the 1930s in the US with the rise of the CIO and the resurgence
of labor organizing, a good dose of social struggle will shake things
loose and separate the mass of the working class away from the true
lumpens, who will remain a tiny minority.
I am always heartened by the fact that whenever decent jobs are suddenly
opened up (like for example a few hundred factory jobs in some area), a
huge mass of previously invisible people (to the economists) turn out to
apply. We have seen this throughout the US during the dark days of the
1980s to the present.
Pete Farruggio
At 08:30 AM 1/21/00 , you wrote:
>We are also living in a world where there is an increasing lumpen
>proletariat. With rapid global industrialisation and bad environmental
>management, pre-industrial lifestyles have become less viable, so we are
>losing our capabilities to lead peasant or tribal lives.
>
>World wide, the peasantry are being urbanised, not to be become working or
>middle class, but to be transitory, lumpen and easily exploitable. The
>effect on textile and garment workers (never the best paid in the first
>case) in the northern countries has also been devastating. As Bruce
>indicates, the role of organised labour in achieving what we have is
>fundamental, however, it is not without reason that governments who are
>claiming to be "modern" (like our Mr Blair), are trying to roll back the
>power of organised labour (from a political party that was meant to be the
>voice of organised labour). Earlier this month "development" was
>debated... the same issues apply to economic development. Development as
>improvement is yet another construct to be challenged. Fukayama may be
>wrong. History may have not died yet.
>
>Martin
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