in this chapter. Ultimately, the division of surplus value is not simply a matter of mathematics, technology, or inevitability, but of power. Capital mobilized not only itself but its states and global institutions to bring about the shift in wealth we have seen in the era of neoliberalism. The value composition of capital presents limits, but not absolute limits. Pushing back the borders of profit is, in the final analysis, a matter of organization, politics, and force. Ironically, perhaps the only way capitalism might be forced to “kick the habit” of dependency on wage compression and work intensification is to force capital to shift some of its surplus to labor, perhaps encouraging increased investment in new “labor-saving” technology. The other possibility, of course, is that increased struggle on a mass scale eventually runs up against the limits of capital, in which case far more is involved than the behavior of unions, as we can see in Greece and elsewhere.
Even the growth of unions, however, seldom comes about incrementally. Rather, as Kelly, Clawson, and others argue, union growth is a function of an upsurge in class conflict.103 The precise mechanisms required to create the human agency that makes such an upsurge possible is a matter of considerable debate, but two things seem clear. One is that changes in the way capital organizes labor and the conditions that workers must face have a great deal to do with it, as they did in the 1930s and in the 1960s. This is why the workplace or the “job” is key. The other is that such upheavals transform the very human agents who carry it out, expanding the realm of possibility.
While there is no automatic mechanism that creates such an upturn in worker self-activity, the worker-led resistance that has commenced on a fairly large scale in Europe, Latin America, and more recently in China suggests the possibility of a new upsurge. Even such seemingly disconnected events as the plant occupation at Republic Windows and Doors in December 2008 and the spectacular mass movement in Wisconsin in early 2011 may be signs of things to come.104 It is also worth noting that where the strike has been revived, as in hotels and hospitals, among other settings, it has often worked. The choices made by union leaders and many workplace leaders in the 1980s opened certain possibilities for capital. The question now is: can workers in and out of today’s unions make different choices and bring about different outcomes? Whether America’s weakened labor movement can rise to the occasion, as it did in the early 1930s, when it had hit low levels of organization comparable to those of today, is as much a matter of practice and politics as of economics.
Originally published as “Contextualising Organised Labour in Expansion and Crisis: The Case of the US” in Historical Materialism 20(1): 3–30, 2012.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
