10/04/2011

today, the issue of class formation

among historians, class formation refers to the structural process by which a class emerges. this isn't our concern, today—not the emergence of social structures, but rather the formation of class political capacity. its organization as a coherent actor.

you would think that nothing is more important in Marxist theory than the question of class formation. but, as a theoretical issue, the issue has been sidelined; it's been central to political debates, without being heavily theorized.

the questions were always dealt with concretely, in context, but not cashed out in abstract terms.

the Second International is full of this kind of stuff; deserves to be mined for insights. we don't have 'data', because—unlike then—we're nowhere near power.

this issue is dealt with, theoretically, by the 'New Left'. it didn't last long, unfortunately—partly because the New Left gives up on class, but also because not many of the individuals on the New Left were embedded in organizing and struggle.

central to Offie and Wiezenthal's argument is the claim that there's a systematic link between class structure and class formation—the structure sets the constraints on actors' ability to organize around their interests. importantly, this is a story of differential constraints.

the argument is made at a very high level of abstraction. a strength of the theory, insofar as this suggests that certain barriers to organizing are intrinsic to the structure of capitalism. descending levels of abstraction, introducing race and whatnot, will not erase these basic barriers.

why do classes organize, at all?

indeed, Offie and Wiezenthal argue that only one of capitalism's two constitutive classes has to organize. capitalists do not need organization, in order to advance their interests. the very fact of capitalist reproduction ensures that capitalists keep the upper hand.

workers, however, cannot advance their interests except through organizing. if left to themselves, workers are at the mercy of capitalists.

thus, for capitalists, political organization merely amplifies an already-existing structural advantage. in effect, capitalists can devote their energies to breaking workers' organization.

it is workers that have to expend their resources on forming organizations.

thus, first, the facts about the class structure explain why some actors have to organize themselves.

the second part of the argument concerns the question of what makes workers successful. for the New Left, the failure of workers to organize was an indictment of Marxism, exhibiting the irrelevance of 'class' to social structure, etc. hence the flight from class.

the power of Offie and Wiezenthal's analysis is that it undermines this, at its root. they suggest that the 'infinite divisions' argument presupposes a world of interest groups, not of classes. this is pluralism—politics comes out of the contingent clash of interest groups.

(agency is an 'elixir' that dissolves all social structures)

Offie and Wiezenthal reject this. centrally, their argument is that the structure of capitalism doesn't just distribute interests differentially, but it also distributes capacities unevenly. the organization of workers is continually undercut by the structure of capitalism.

the inability of workers to organize is not a refutation of Marx's theory, but a confirmation.

why? what are the mechanisms?

when capitalists and workers undertake their exchange on the market, they do this as class actors.

when they organize themselves, inhibiting mechanisms appear.

the first weakness, for workers, is the uniqueness of labour-power as a commodity. capital is a fluid, malleable substance, that can be detached, split up, and also amalgamate. it's never attached to a person. workers cannot become bigger and bigger workers, individually—they can only become bigger associations of workers. this is associating (for workers), versus merging (for capital).

critically, this fact has differential consequences. when you try and form bigger and bigger associations, workers will be more effective—BUT, you have to combat the problem of its constitutive heterogeneity.

three problems emerge.

first, the problem of trade-offs—different workers will attach different valuations to different issues/demands, in a campaign. associations will have to prioritize demands. the issue of interest aggregation.

second, different workers have different bargaining positions. for some workers (the least-skilled, the poorest, etc.), collective organization is everything; for others, though, there are workers for whom individual survival strategies are practicable. [here we've descended a level of abstraction, of course].

now, the task for organizers is to convince some workers to redefine their interests.

third, for every worker who is employed by a capitalist, he cannot avoid the problem that he can't escape his employers' interest. workers depend on the employer for their livelihood. the viability of the employers firm has to be one of the constraints that the workers take on board, when aggregating their interests. this is not true for the employer.

this is the structural root of business unionism (the philosophy that says labor and capital are partners in an enterprise). it's rational, all else being equal. this is where Bob Fitch goes wrong.

fourth, all union organizing takes place in the context of managerial power. once you see reason for some employees to resist association, employers have the power to repress all organizing efforts. William Z. Foster's essays, on this score.

these are all the dilemmas that enter into the formation of organizations.

the next dilemma, Offie and Wiezenthal argue, regards organizational sustainability. unions need to be large, but largeness begins to entail trade-offs that lead to bureaucratization. unions, also, have to exert control over their membership—they have, after all, promised their employers labour peace. they have to squelch the internal life of the union. as this happens, the union is less likely to generate feelings of solidarity, and thus less likely to induce members to act. workers are more likely to become free-riders, seeking to minimize the costs they will bear in the course of collective action.

thus, if despite capitalism's continual generation of antagonisms, it remains stable, this is why: it is exceedingly difficult for workers to effectuate the strategies required to defend their interests. capitalist dominance is built into the structure of capitalism.

this is the cruel irony of capitalism—the agents that most need organization are those who are least able to effectuate it.

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