From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Sun Mar 25 2007 - 15:46:39 EDT
Hi Paul, I don't doubt this at all, and in fact the same can be said for most rich countries, especially places like Luxemburg but also Holland for example. Almost everywhere and all times a section of the working population is better paid and more privileged than the rest. This is not in dispute. What is in dispute is (1) their class status and the influences on their political orientation, (2) whether they are actually paid from profits made overseas and (3) whether repatriated profits from overseas used to pay wages are sufficient to sustain a substantial labor aristocracy by themselves. Lenin sought to explain the lack of an anti-imperialist stance by workers in industrialised countries by the fact that a section of the *working class* benefited materially from their own country's imperialism, and were thus unlikely to oppose it. It was a "share in the spoils" argument. But I could argue in the same vein that *any* worker benefits from the job and income he has, and is therefore unlikely to support anything that threatens his job or income. Jurriaan
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Mar 31 2007 - 01:00:12 EDT