From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Thu Jun 12 2003 - 08:44:56 EDT
Re: (OPE-L) Re: the _struggle_ over the length of theRe Rakesh's message dated Wednesday, June 11: Previously I wrote: > Your memory, on Monday, had Marx writing that in nine out of ten cases > "workers struggles are in fact defensive." The paragraph that you cited > does *not* deal with workers' struggles in general -- *or* the specific issue > under discussion in this thread, namely, struggles over the length of > the working day -- but _only_ with struggles for increased wages. It > would be a very big mistake, imo, to conceive of workers' struggles as > _only_ struggles over increased wages. Rakesh responded: > Jerry, are you saying that Marx did conceive of wage struggles as, > if not defensive, then as responses to the previous action and > enroachment of capital? I'll deal with the issue of wage increases in another thread -- one with another subject line. What I *am* saying here is that what Marx wrote in _VPP_ in the paragraphs that you cited concerned *wage struggles* -- not workers' struggles in general or the struggle over the length of the working day in particular. The point remains that Marx did _not_ write that struggles over the length of the working day can be conceived as "defensive" struggles. And -- more to the point -- regardless of what Marx did or did not write, struggles over the length of the working day are expressions in part of the aspirations of the working class for additional leisure time which collide with the drive by capital to -- wherever possible -- increase absolute surplus value. To conceive one-sidedly of such struggles as primarily "defensive" fails to grasp what workers are fighting *for*. Related struggles by workers -- e.g. for increased vacation time per year, for pension plans, for early retirement, etc. -- which are fought either through the collective bargaining process or as social movements which demand public entitlements by the state can also not be comprehended merely as defensive "reactions" to the "previous action" and "encroachments of capital." To treat such struggles as if they were in general struggles against "givebacks" is, once again, to miss the concrete goal that workers are struggling *for*. In solidarity, Jerry
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