[Marxism] Imperialism and the US working class (Was YADL)

[S. Artesian]

Real wages for real workers dropped throughout the late 1970s and throughout 
the 1980s.  Workers who lost unionized jobs, industrial jobs like the 
meatpackers whom Joaquin thinks stepped into better paying service jobs, 
when able to find new jobs, generally experienced wage declines of some 30% 
in the new job.  This has been well studied, documented etc.

Rail workers who lost their jobs due to the bankruptcies and mergers in the 
late 70s/80s [and into 90s], workers better protected and compensated than 
most, who "flowed" to the increasing number of short-line railroads spun off 
by the majors,  lost considerable percentages of compensation, benefits, and 
work rule protections-- as was/is also the case with airline pilots etc.

The historical conservativism of the white sector of the working class has 
certainly resisted the decline in its power, wages, and protections-- but 
those declines have been real nonetheless.

As for this notion of imperialist privilege-- a little data would help here. 
Joaquin says the "imperialist countries grow rich as [at] the expense of the 
colonial and semi-colonial countries.  The overwhelming majority of the 
population of imperialist countries share in this imperialist privilege." 
Really?  How rich?  What portion of the wealth involves a transfer of wealth 
from the colonial and semi-colonial countries.  It would be helpful to get a 
grip on the amounts involved in these supposed transfers.  Lenin never 
provided any data on this in Imperialism.

And then how does that transfer get "trickled down"?  And I do mean the 
quotation marks here-- because at the end, at the bottom line, all this 
stuff about imperialist privilege and everyone in the imperialist countries 
sharing in the spoils is nothing but the good old Reagan "trickle down" 
theory dressed up in radical clothers.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 8:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Imperialism and the US working class (Was YADL)