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A view from the US February 20, 2013

Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, The Left, US Politics.
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Thanks to EMC for forwarding this…

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1. yourcousin - February 21, 2013

Wow, I’m so glad that I had a Marxist-Leninist to tell me what any dog on the street knows, namely that unions set wage conditions for the non union workers in their given sectors and that as union workers take cuts so to will their non union counter parts. This tiered system has been growing for years with apprentices in the trades taking hits over a decade ago in my local and with the UFCW (grocery workers union) selling out new hires to keep up pension benefits for older members. This was always seen as the “lesser evil”option since there was no ready answer for pensions and there was little appetite for massive industrial action even among the rank and file. Things got to the point where the international of local 7 (the UFCW local here) stepping in and stopping a contract vote because they thought that too many members were willing to take the cuts.

Workers in general and union workers specifically face many challenges today, none of which will be solved by citing Lenin.

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WorldbyStorm - February 21, 2013

Let a hundred flowers bloom…

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yourcousin - February 22, 2013

if Leninism is a serious contender than the working class is indeed doomed

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CMK - February 22, 2013

Why?

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yourcousin - February 22, 2013

Because Marxism, let alone Leninism will never be a tenable solution in America (thankfully IMO).

I would also argue that it is a failed and hopefully dead ideology meant for a group that no longer exists. To keep grasping at straws and saying “if the workers would only understand [insert text from Marxist revolutionary playbook]” is the epitome of dead end politics. It is as assanign as me saying “if the workers would all just join the union then we would have a strong union movement”. You might as well try to wish unicorns into existence as long as you’re just wishing for things. To deal with the issues specifically weighed to the UAW or even American manufacturing in general are a little more complicated the just saying it’s Obama’s fault for the bailout which cut wages.

Aside from the difference in title how is the troika really all that different from a revolutionary vanguard? Neither are accountable to the people and both claim to act in their best interest even when the contrary can be seen by anyone gifted with the common sense that the good lord bestows upon a garden vegetable. I don’t want a benevolent overlords, the whole point is that I don’t want an overlords at all, be they an aristocrat citing noblesse oblige, a banker citing investor confidence and the demands of the market or a commisar citing Lenin and Marx.

I certainly don’t need to read the works of dead men to understand that they’re pausing on my leg and telling me it’s raining.

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revolutionaryprogramme - February 21, 2013

Without necessarily agreeing with everything in this piece, which I have only read quickly, it is pretty clear that the article does more than just describe the situation of workers but attempts to give that a materialist basis in the framework of the international capitalist system. And for that you do generally need a Marxist-Leninist of some sort…

Of course citing Lenin solves nothing in-itself but it is hard to see how the “challenges” workers face can be fundamentally resolved outside the general analytical framework (of international capitalist imperialist relations) that the Lenin cites refer to.

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Red Hand - February 21, 2013

Citing John Lennon maybe

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