View the h-radhist Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-radhist's August 2000 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in h-radhist's August 2000 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the h-radhist home page.
[Editor's note: I was on a sort of vacation for a week, thus a bunch of messages did not get posted to H-RADHIST until now. Van Gosse] Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 22:32:17 -0700 From: William M Mandel <wmmmandel@earthlink.net> Brian Collier's informative description of ethnic and gender shifts in the English working class is not matched by his handling of time factors or understanding of Marxism. One cannot say that no one in Bradford was a native when the only figures given are separated by half a century. By the end of that time span one had, in that population, not only the children but the young grandchildren of the initial inhabitants plus the children of the newcomers during roughly the first half of that period. Secondly, within an in-migrant population, it is entirely possible for oppressions based upon ethnicity and gender to be less as well as more intense than those based on class. With respect to gender, that would depend upon differences in culture within the various ethnicities as well as between them and the dominant culture of the country. In a country where clitoral circumcision is regarded with horror, as it should be, that practice would tend to, at the very least, decline among immigrants. With respect to ethnicity, the intensity of oppression could be affected by adherence or non-adherence to the dominant religion in the country. In England, Catholics would have had, in the period discussed, a tougher time than immigrant Protestants, even if the latter were, let us say, Lutheran instead of Church-of-England. Jews could be better off economically, and vastly worse off in terms of non-economic oppressions. If a particular ethnicity belonged overwhelmingly to a single class (in practice workingclass or petty bourgeous), oppression would be of a different intensity than if that were not the case. From where in Marx or Engels does Collier get the idea that class was seen as the reason for the other oppressions? While it is certainly true that the female textile worker had a level of economic independence that the housewife did not, the fact is that the latter status was usually seen as an improvement over the former. The misery of the workingclass home did not include the tuberculosis-facilitating dust, the deafening noise, the physical danger of belt-driven looms, and the stultifying monotony of a mill job. Nor have I seen evidence that the workingclass husband was less apt to beat his wife than would a man of the petty bourgeoisie or the capitalist class. I would guess -- someone should study this if it hasn't already been done -- that, because, other than sport, alcohol was the sole distraction available to the workingclass male, he would be worse in this regard than men of the other classes. The statement that Marxists were in the forefront of the fight against racism and sexism is probably true, but only in relative terms. Although the Socialist Party in the United States, in its heyday, had a strong Marxist component, it can hardly be held to have had an accepted inclusive theory. And it very specifically thought that oppression based on ethnicity was less real than that based on class. Its view of the condition of African-Americans was that they were simply poor workers, no more and no less. It did not understand racial oppression and I know of nothing it did as a party to fight it. The Communist Party ("Stalinists" in Collier's lexicon) both understood it and fought it, as did no other predominantly white organization in the 20th century. Collier is quite right that movements based on economic class, as Marx understood it, are, certainly in the United States and, within the limits of my knowledge, in England and Western Europe, less significant today than those based upon race (or ethnicity: I'm not aware that anyone regards the Irish as being of a different race than the English). That does not invalidate Marx' definition of class, although it certainly does call into question his view that the workingclass is the force that will lead humanity to solution of the horrors of capitalism. William Mandel Van Gosse wrote: > From: "Brian Collier" <brian_collier@lineone.net> > Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2000 16:38:49 +0100 > > It would be strange if "class struggle", was not intimately related to > divisions of labour based upon ethnicity (or gender, for that matter). We > cannot easily separate out these "moments" from our studies of real history. > No reasonable Marxist (even of the most orthodox variety) would suggest that > we could. Marxists (except for rigid ideologues and Stalinists) have never > argued that oppressions based upon race/ethnicity and gender were less > "real" than those based upon class, or even that they were less intense. > The reason for the emphasis on class is that class was seen as the reason > for the other oppressions, and thus class analysis formed the best > explanation for them; but except for Spartacist losers (I mean the > contemporary ones of course, NOT Liebknecht and Luxemburg), Marxists always > were in the forefront of fighting racism and sexism. I'm not satisfied with > this approach these days. I look for formations of what I term "political > classes", following Cox, but economic/social/political moments based upon > "class" (in the Marxist sense) vie with those based upon race and gender, > and with ideological and cultural moments that cannot easily be reduced to > any of them. So my definition of "class" has more in common with the usage > of Bourdieu or Touraine (as well as Cox) than that of Marx. > > What gave Sharon the idea that England had/has a relatively homogenous > "working class"? Compared to America maybe, but not compared to the rest of > Europe, and most of the rest of the world. Britain had a regular influx of > Irish immigrants from at least the mid eighteenth century onwards, turning > into quite a flood after the famine. There were also a fair smattering, in > the big cities, particularly London, of people of Afro-Caribbean and Asian > descent. William Cuffay, the radical tailor and Chartist leader, was black > and the son (or possibly grandson, I haven't the reference with me) of a > slave. Britain's first Communist MP, in 1922, Shapurji Dorabji Saklatvala, > was from India (and I think he was the second Indian MP, there had been a > Liberal before). > > The contribution of the Irish to British radicalism and socialism has been > well-documented, not least by both Thompsons. Studies of how the Irish > fitted into the working class, and any plebeian prejudices against them are > less well-represented, at least for the period before 1850. Or this is my > impression, it isn't a great speciality of mine, and perhaps someone else > might enlighten us. From my own researches on Lancashire and Yorkshire > textile towns, which cover the period c.1790 -1870, I haven't come across > any great antagonism before the increase in immigration consequent upon the > famine, and this is perhaps not surprising when we examine the context. > This was a time of tremendous population growth and of urbanisation: > Bradford, where I live currently, saw its population rise from 3000 - 57000 > in the period 1801-1851. No-one was a native! And this holds true for most > of the other textile towns. > > Radicals also "hid out" in Ireland: I've recently looked at a portion of > HO42 (the class of the home office papers, consisting largely of letters in > from magistrates, soldiers and spies) for 1817, bemoaning the fact that > William Benbow had fled to Dublin, and couldn't be found. The struggle of > the ordinary Irish was close to the heart of the English working class > movement, and was seen as a corollary to the struggle of the indigenous > workers. The Charter petitions always contained demands for greater Irish > rights and autonomy along with the six points, and, when the first act of > the 1832 Reformed Parliament was to pass coercion legislation for Ireland, > the workers knew for certain they had been betrayed. > > The antagonism was certainly there among some of the rulers and their > lackeys. The magistrates, Fletcher and Lloyd, of Bolton, and Stockport were > among the founders of the Orange Order in mainland Britain, and Fletcher > always drools if he finds an Irish connection in the conspiracies he > constantly imagined/exaggerated based upon the reports of his spies. Again, > I haven't the reference before me, but Fletcher offered to the Home > Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, the help of the Orange Lodge to quell disorder, I > believe in 1815 or 1816 (it's in HO42 somewhere). > > There was certainly some antagonism towards the Irish in Manchester during > the period of Chartism, which occasioned clashes on the street (the work of > Paul Pickering is useful here), but this was because the Irish there > followed O'Connell, and thus the "Liberator's" antagonism to any who didn't > bow the knee to orthodox "classical" political economy came into play. > Dorothy Thompson, in a fine essay in the book she edited with James Epstein, > "The Chartist Movement" nailed the lie that the Irish in general were > hostile to Chartism. > > But the main "problems" came post-famine. The urban areas were now > longer-established and more settled, and thus any large influx was more > noticeable, especially in the context of a collapse of the Chartist > hegemonic project. When extreme Protestant agitators stirred things up, > things could get riotous, and often did in the 1850s and 60s in Lancashire. > The most accessible work here is by my old tutor, Neville Kirk, whose > "Ethnicity, Class and Popular Toryism 1850-1870" is in "Hosts, Immigrants > and Minorities" edited by Kenneth Lunn. Lancashire, where I grew up, even > developed the jaw-droppingly oxymoronic phenomenon of a militant > Anglicanism, which was still going strong when I was a kid in the sixties: > the Protestants and Catholics (who included a preponderance of Irish names > in their midst, if my schoolfriends were representative) marched at > Whitsuntide on separate days, trying to outdo one another with flash banners > and smart clothes (it was the one time of the year we got new clothes!) or, > if you lived in Liverpool or Southport, fighting. All this is dead now > (except in Liverpool and Southport). Anti-Irish feeling still flickers > briefly after some republican or loyalist outrage (the latter are not any > better loved by the mass of the British than the former), but hasn't > threatened public disorder for at least a quarter of a century. > > Since the late 1940s the British working class has been enriched by mass > immigration, mainly from the Caribbean and the old Indian Empire (Pakistan > and India in particular), which has been the occasion for much racism, but > also much mutual learning and solidarity. The experience of the great mass > of these people and their descendants is overwhelmingly working class, but > it is not the experience of the old "white" working class, and it has > transformed the experience (the habitus) of the working class as a whole, > just has have the struggles against sexism and the oppression of women, and > the feminisation of Britain's workforce. This experience is much studied in > Britain, and the volume of work on both theory and practice is too vast to > sample. However, I don't think we've had a book quite like "La Misere du > Monde" by Bourdieu et al, translated by Polity into English last year as > "The Weight of the World", which might go some way to answering Sharon's > last point. > > Regards, Brian Collier > > > From: svance@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Sharon Vance) > > Date: Sun, 6 Aug 2000 00:41:15 -0400 (EDT) > > > > re: class and race/ethnicity etc > > > > actually i think that, and correct me if i'm wrong, most of the history of > > class struggle around the globe has involved some kind of ethnic division > > of labor. it is ironic, if this is true, that the model for class struggle > > was the relatively homogenious societies of France and England, and even > > these were made mono-ethnic by ignoring the role that colonies and the > > celtic periphery played. thompson had to make is working class english, by > > stating in the preface that he would not deal with the history of the > > working class outside of English. But in fact it wasn't completely English > > because of the role that Irish radical immigrants played in the English > > working class movement. > > were there sectarian fights in England btwn Irish workers and English > > workers during the time that Thompson's study covers? If so how did they > > effect the development o f the Enlgish labor movement? > > > > Maybe the separation of race from class is artificial, or is a product of > > the historian's theory, and is also a kind of distortion of reality, a > > kind of creating a national purity that never really existed. > > > > and if race and class religion and class ethnicity and class have almost > > always existed together, then the search for pure class struggle may also > > be an illusion. this doesn't mean i am advocating identity politics as a > > substitute for class identity. but i think that the working class has > > always been a part of specific cultures that included other identities, > > none of which were pure. there are more studies now of working class jews, > > the black working class etc. are there any cross cultural studies of > > working class groups? and why is the theory on class and these other > > identities still so impoverished, still so either/ or and not both? > > seeing this is part of a post about Bourdieu are there any studies of the > > interactions and relations btwn the French working class and the immigrant > > working class in France? has he done any? > > Sharon > > -- Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\wmmmandel1.vcf" --
|