Reply-To: <BKRUBY@prodigy.net>
From: "BRIAN K RUBY" <BKRUBY@prodigy.net>
To: <matthew@louisville.edu>,
        "PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK" <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: A Nation of Spectators?
Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 02:41:38 -0400
     I see no reason for celebration when I see my fellow human beings
exploited in order to create more surplus value for a corporation to
extract. Also, I am not angry about lost jobs, although some workers are,
and with good reason.
     Take for instance Delco Electronics in Kokomo, Indiana. The jobs in
this case which were moved south of the border paid Americans workers on
average $15 to $20 dollars/hour. The same jobs in Mexico earns the Mexican
worker less than $100/week. Not to mention that Delco (a division of GM)
escapes environmental regulations, unions (UAW), etc.
     And about this "skill level" thing. I cannot count the people I have
met working for $7 to $8/hour in nonskilled positions of labor who had
bachelors or advanced degrees in various fields (take that as fair
warning). Besides, the whole movement of jobs is about the extraction of
surplus value, not skill. The 15 year veteran of Delco certainly knew his
or her job better than an untrained Mexican worker, don't you think?
     Furthermore, I do not hypothesize from some ivory "academic" tower. I
have been in two labor unions, was a union safety rep and a union steward.
I have been through contract negotiations, strikes, picket lines, grievance
hearings and the like. This summer I am working in a nonunion factory to
keep my hands dirty and remain in touch with my working class compatriots.
I find that there is nothing like a good dose of alienation to remind me of
what I am fighting for.
     Anyone who thinks for one minute that it is possible to make
corporations into tools of the working class is living in a dream similar
to the one Hegel had constructed concerning the nature of reality. Marx, if
I remember correctly, "turned Hegel upside down" and grounded his flight of
fancy in undeniable historical materialism. The world of reality and fact
tell me that it will take rivers of "blood, sweat and tears" to make the
corporations buckle under. People with power do not give up power
voluntarily and all the academic musings you might read here will not
change that.

----------
> From: M. W. McGovern <matthew@louisville.edu>
> To: PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK <psn@csf.colorado.edu>
> Subject: Re: A Nation of Spectators?
> Date: Thursday, July 02, 1998 3:21 PM
> 
> >
> 
>   Greetings,
> 
> First off, I am more or less a PSN spectator, yet I feel I need to ask a
> question at this point.
> 
> With all the hoopla about jobs moving away from the states, and the
"anger" at
> which it seems to bring, whatever happened to the "workers of the WORLD
unite"
> ideology?  With these jobs going across our borders to other lands,
should not
> we be happy that our brothers and sisters are gaining an opportunity to
gain
> more from the use of their labor?  And in turn, should we not be ready
for the
> challenge of increasing the skill in which our workers here at home will
need to
> compete?
> 
> With the increase in the skill level of our homeland workers, will not
more
> opportunities be created for some workers to ride themselves of the
oppressive
> and exploitive "shackles" of their bosses, and begin to compete against
them
> (hopefully without forgetting the feelings of unity with their fellow
brother
> and sister workers?).
> 
> Yes, the big corporations are tools of the ruling class, yet they are
also our
> tools as well, we just need to realize this, and use it for the benefit
of
> workers in general.  Rome was not built in a day, and neither will a
world for
> the working class, yet with time and social evolution, I would bet that
the
> world of our grandchildren, or gr-grandchildren etc. might just become
that
> world.
> 
> In Solidarity,
> 
> Matthew W. McGovern
>