Landmarks in working class history

[newbie]

I asked Danny that, he hasn't replied: everything that's happened in the last 200 years is merely 'conditions' and has had no fundamental effect?

 

[butchersapron]

What did you ask danny, let's be clear:

 

[newbie]

#54

 

[butchersapron]

Explain then, because this looks nothing like my point at all (nor what danny was trying to say)

seriously?

everything that's happened in the last 200 years is merely 'conditions' and has had no fundamental effect?

have you tried telling that to any women, or any people of African heritage?

I'm going to watch MoTD. I'll look at the people in the crowd and try to think of a single aspect of their class relationships which hasn't changed.

 

[butchersapron]

#54

..and let's be clear what you replied

 

[newbie]

you seem to be having real problems parsing this part of the thread.

Danny is saying that the 'primary class relationship' has remained unchanged since 1800, but that 'conditions' have changed. I'm trying to find out if he thinks the change in 'conditions' is fundamental or not.

a 'condition' I've mentioned is the abolition of slavery

 

[butchersapron]

One of the benefits of being a shit-stirrer (read having interesting opinions) is that no one really gives a shit what you say.

 

[butchersapron]

you seem to be having real problems parsing this part of the thread.

Danny is saying that the 'primary class relationship' has remained unchanged since 1800, but that 'conditions' have changed. I'm trying to find out if he thinks the change in 'conditions' is fundamental or not.

a 'condition' I've mentioned is the abolition of slavery

No, it's quite simple - the class relationship has not changed -the form in which it appears has.

 

[newbie]

so slavery is a 'form'?

 

[butchersapron]

It's many things, a form is one of them.

You miss the 'from 1800' bit - i wonder why? Did he?

 

[newbie]

It's many things, a form is one of them.

wriggle

I also mentioned women, have the changes in their 'conditions' been fundamental or does their 'primary class relationship' also remain unchanged over the last couple of hubndred years?

You miss the 'from 1800' bit - i wonder why.

what?

 

[butchersapron]

wriggle

There's literally nothing there to wriggle out of.

I also mentioned women, have the changes in their 'conditions' been fundamental or does their 'primary class relationship' also remain unchanged over the last couple of hubndred years?

what?

You're arguing that they have so let's see you make that case.

 

[newbie]

of course there is, you're wriggling because it's blatantly obvious that for those affected the abolition of slavery fundamentally and totally changed their 'primary class relationship'. It did for the slaveowners and traders too.

as to women, it's what we see as basic: being an individual not a chattel.

 

[butchersapron]

of course there is, you're wriggling because it's blatantly obvious that for those affected the abolition of slavery fundamentally and totally changed their 'primary class relationship'. It did for the slaveowners and traders too.

as to women, it's what we see as basic: being an individual not a chattel.

Wriggling? They became owners of the means of production? Have another go.

 

[N_igma]

those affected the abolition of slavery fundamentally and totally changed their 'primary class relationship'. It did for the slaveowners and traders too.

Elaborate please?

 

[danny la rouge]

Newbie, I'll ignore your ever-shifting goalposts, and attempt to illuminate things for you.

The institution of slavery was, amongst other things, a ruling class response to working class solidarity. You’re asking a question requiring a reply of wider scope than a post on an internet bulletin board gives room for, but if you’re really interested, I suggest a good place to start is Howard Zinn’s History of the American People, which has ample references and sources for you to follow up. But in short, European-American slavery (which differs, in ways Zinn and others explore, from Asiatic-African slavery) in the period we’re referring to was an expression of capitalism; the slave-owners were capitalists, the chattel-bond servants (both slaves and indentured servants) were the proletariat. If you read Zinn and follow up his references, you’ll see that the similarities of the lot of slaves and indentured servants in the colonies was a problem for the ruling class, and they sought to prevent them taking common cause (as they in fact often did, in rebellions minor and not so minor, charted by Zinn) by imposing race ideology on the situation, and enacting race-based laws.

The abolition of slavery in America meant the slaves, on the whole, passed from being “slaves” to being indentured servants. Watch the second series of Roots for a dramatised interpretation of what that meant. I think you’ll find that, for Haley, emancipation brought with it a hollow “freedom”. The abolition of first the slave trade and then on slave-owning in the UK had an effect on the businesses conducted by British-based capitalists in the colonies, but they soon found new ways of exploiting people.

And this is perhaps where our perspectives differ: where I see an increasing sophistication on behalf of the ruling classes, in doing what they always did but with more subtlety, you see sea-changes.

My forebears worked in the mines in Blantyre. You’ll see I listed the Blantyre Disaster as among my landmarks. I put it there not because it was a victory or a cause for celebration, but because it had an effect on working class consciousness. My Granddad talked about it. My Dad talked about it. Look into conditions for miners and their families at the time of the Disaster. Decades after the Factories Act. Decades after the abolition of slavery.

But here’s the interesting bit. Now go to a bus stop (I’m stealing your rhetorical device) in Blantyre and ask if the base relationship between boss and worker has fundamentally changed since then. Then see who is laughing.

 

[JimW]

If we're going international, the Hunan Workers' Association

 

[Idaho]

Presumably we want to include the good with the bad?

In which case the British Union of Fascists Peace Rally at Earls Court and the Battle of Cable Street?

Can't find a decent source about the rally.

Also the founding of the International Brigades to fight in Spain - can't really pin that to an actual date as such...

 

[butchersapron]

The BUF rally was more of a middle upper class establishment society do really.

 

[newbie]

Newbie, I'll ignore your ever-shifting goalposts, and attempt to illuminate things for you.

The institution of slavery was, amongst other things, a ruling class response to working class solidarity. You’re asking a question requiring a reply of wider scope than a post on an internet bulletin board gives room for, but if you’re really interested, I suggest a good place to start is Howard Zinn’s History of the American People, which has ample references and sources for you to follow up. But in short, European-American slavery (which differs, in ways Zinn and others explore, from Asiatic-African slavery) in the period we’re referring to was an expression of capitalism; the slave-owners were capitalists, the chattel-bond servants (both slaves and indentured servants) were the proletariat. If you read Zinn and follow up his references, you’ll see that the similarities of the lot of slaves and indentured servants in the colonies was a problem for the ruling class, and they sought to prevent them taking common cause (as they in fact often did, in rebellions minor and not so minor, charted by Zinn) by imposing race ideology on the situation, and enacting race-based laws.

The abolition of slavery in America meant the slaves, on the whole, passed from being “slaves” to being indentured servants. Watch the second series of Roots for a dramatised interpretation of what that meant. I think you’ll find that, for Haley, emancipation brought with it a hollow “freedom”. The abolition of first the slave trade and then on slave-owning in the UK had an effect on the businesses conducted by British-based capitalists in the colonies, but they soon found new ways of exploiting people.

You're using the gods eye view, society viewed from above through the prism of economic determinism. Yet viewed from the perspective of the slave in 1800, newly captured and transported, there is no comparison between their relationship with capital and that of their descendants today. None. Someone who couldn't even own their own name would not recognise the level of control over their own destiny available today. As is obvious to the people in the bus queue (unless by some weird chance one of them happens to inhabit the narrow dogmatic world of the well read lefty).

And this is perhaps where our perspectives differ: where I see an increasing sophistication on behalf of the ruling classes, in doing what they always did but with more subtlety, you see sea-changes.

As do the rest of the bus queue

It's not subtle! It's simple to recognise that minor little things like women being people not chattels, the end of feudalism, near universal literacy, human rights, employment rights, w/c asset ownership, consumerism and the welfare state amount to a substantial sea change. For reasons that continue to mystify me there is a tiny band of lefties stuck in the C19 who want us to believe that all the changes are window dressing. As I said above, that's a massive disservice to those who struggled (& struggle now) to effect those sea changes, and those who suffered because they weren't won sooner (including those who died at Blantyre).

But here’s the interesting bit. Now go to a bus stop (I’m stealing your rhetorical device) in Blantyre and ask if the base relationship between boss and worker has fundamentally changed since then. Then see who is laughing.

Don't be silly. Slaves, serfs and women didn't have 'bosses' they had owners.

 

[danny la rouge]

minor little things

I think really you're trying your damnedest to misunderstand me. I did not say the victories won through the struggles you characterized as "all very romantic" were minor. Nor did I say they weren't worth having. I said the opposite. I said they were worth having, and that they were hard-won.

However, if you think that those who died at Blantyre with the benefit of the Factories Act under their belt, or those who died on Piper Alpha with the right to vote had fundamentally differing class relationships with the capitalist class, then you're just plain wrong.

 

[Idaho]

The BUF rally was more of a middle upper class establishment society do really.

There was a sizeable grassroots movement in the midlands and lancashire that was working class.

 

[danny la rouge]

It's not subtle!

You're misreading me; I said the ruling class was becoming more sophisticated and subtle (in the "developed" democracies). They can no longer subdue by overt violence (so much).

 

[butchersapron]

There was a sizeable grassroots movement in the midlands and lancashire that was working class.

You're talking about the BUF - not the BUF rally you mentioned.

 

[newbie]

I'm trying not to misunderstand you, but I can't reconcile your position with what I see around me. I can't see class as a set of relationships which have remained static throughout all the dynamic change over the last couple of hundred years, such that an account of class relationships in 1800 can usefully describe any aspect of modern life.

If you try to strip out all the dynamic changes as mere 'conditions' (or 'form') which have not changed the fundamental relationships, you're reducing the nature of the fundamental relationship to such an extent it becomes meaningless. The days of the all powerful capitalist in the top hat and the workers with options determined entirely by their class have long gone and they're not coming back. Rather than quote a little quip, why not address the substance of what I said "It's simple to recognise that minor little things like women being people not chattels, the end of feudalism, near universal literacy, human rights, employment rights, w/c asset ownership, consumerism and the welfare state amount to a substantial sea change." You cannot adequately describe the class relationships bearing on an individual today without taking at least those factors into account, because if you do so you're ignoring the realities of life in a complex, globalised consumer society.

 

[danny la rouge]

Do you think class still matters?

 

[newbie]

yes of course it does but it matters in complex (& contradictory) ways which have shifted during my life and continue to shift

 

[danny la rouge]

yes of course it does but it matters in complex (& contradictory) ways which have shifted during my life and continue to shift

What's shifting, though? You're looking at the shadows, not the substance.

Read my posts again. You think I'm arguing that nothing has changed since the industrial revolution? I'm not.

Take a call centre. What's different between that and a cotton mill? The looms are telephone heads-sets and PCs. The air isn't full of flax dust. The hours are shorter, dinner breaks longer, and instead of getting together to pay the GP in the manner of a Christmas club workers have the NHS. These differences and more are all won through struggle.

But what's the same? Ask yourself that.

 

[newbie]

lifelong the workers in the cotton mill derived all their income from their work; they probably lived in a home tied to the job binding them into a position of tight dependency on their employer and quite possibly ensuring they did the same monotony throughout their working life which, as there was no pension, meant all their life; they had little or nothing in the way of assets (or insurance) to protect them in harsh times; they were poorly educated with little opportunity for social mobility; they had little or no access to health or welfare care and what was available was expensive; they had some of the protections of Common Law (in England, dunno about Scotland) but few individual or personal rights enforceable in law; they had no political representation in any legislature, local or national, as they had no vote; individually they had very little control over any aspect of their lives, women far less than men. To a very large degree the shape of their life was predictable from their class and where and when they were born.

shadows?

I know you're not saying nothing has changed, but the changes are far more substantial than mere shadows.

What has stayed, unambiguously, the same?

 

[danny la rouge]

shadows?

It's an analogy for the structure of society. I gave the full version several posts ago: government is the shadow cast over society by business. Does that mean government is nothing? No. It means if you stare at government you're not seeing the cause of the shadow.