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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 23:50:19 -0400
From:         BROWNH@CCSUA.CTSTATEU.EDU
Subject:      RE: Selling cars to Japan (17): An open letter to Haines Brown
Comments: To: HISTORY%RUTVM1.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU

Interesting, Daniel, that you have hooked me into an issue in passing
that has been preoccupying me for the last few days.  Let me mention
why, for I think it is relevant.  At its last national convention in
December, the CPUSA had the misfortune of having an important sector of
its leadership and membership (esp. districts of northern California and
New York) split off into a counter convention. The outcome was the forma-
tion of Committees of Correspondence in various parts of the country, and
this past weekend these CofCs, as they style themselves, held their first
convention to elect a leadership and work out organizational and policy
questions.

Among the key issues that characterize or caused this split is doubts
about the CPUSA's traditional policy of industrial concentration (the
view that the industrial proletariat is the leading sector of the wor-
king class). The contary view is that a "socialist" organization ought
rather to respond to the growing importance of the service sector of the
US economy, and it should include in its leadership representatives of
various special constituences or interest groups that are not defined
by a traditional Marxist definition of clas
s.  I've tried to present
this in an even handed way, but I can't help but mention in passing that
concentration strategy depends very much on whether one uses bourgeois
sociology to evaluate the situation or whether one begins with a Marxist
definition of class.

Now, warming to Daniel's thesis, central to this debate over industrial
concentration is whether workers in the service sector create value.
I guess the idea is that if you create surplus value that the bosses
appropriate, then your expropriation gives you reason to support socialism.
I hesitate to articulate a position with which I disagree, but it seems
that what counts is the poverty, misery, alienation, deteriorating con-
ditions of life under capitalism, as the engine of revolution (the CofCs
don't talk about revolution, only reform and redistribution), not the
contradiction experienced by the industrial worker at the point of pro-
duction.  It is a very old Marxist point that what counts is the differ-
ence between the value one produces and the value one must consume for
social reproduction, so that the industrial worker is more exploited
than, say, the poorly paid and sweated office workers.  This is a very
interesting perspective that is fun to play with, but I'll let it be.

That is, I believe from a traditional Marxist perspective, it is not of
fundamental importance if service sector workers create new value or not.
A long time ago, classical political economy made a distinction between
productive workers and the non-productive workers like the servants of
the rich.  I'm not so sure we can do that so easily today. For example
people go to some lengths to argue that, say, retail clerks, only trans-
fer values, but information processors create new value.  I have had jto
follow so may convoluted arguments that I've concluded one can just about
make a case for any position. Being rather old fashioned and simple-minded
(a modest way of saying one likes to use Occam's razor), and being a sucker
for the Second Law of Thermodynamics (about which I've had some interes-
ting debates with other subscribers to the list), only conclude that the
emergence of new value arises from the struggle between labor power and
the natural environment that is mediated by productive forces
, but that
the labor of nearly everyone else (I'll return to Daniel's lawyers and
academics) contributes to the productivity of industrial production,
directly, or even perhaps very indirectly, maybe, as Daniel would in-
sist, only contributing to social reproduction (although I find that
useful and honorable work.)  Now I have not attempted to support this
conclusion, but I think at least it does suggest that the distinction
between productive and non-productive labor might be problematic and
so cannot be presumed, and perhaps it also suggests that the conceipt
that we're all being ripped off by the bosses is tautological and does
not help us very much in social analysis.

I've been walzing toward Daniel's thesis on tip-toe because I know how
important it is in his conception of things, and I don't want to be any
more crude in my argumentation than I can help.  Of course we need to
clear some underbrush, and I thing we can all agree that some work done
by people in offices, in academic, in the military or in corporate head-
quarters, is simply make work. Jobs that either don't need to be done at
all, or can be done at a fraction of the cost.  To keep the line of argu-
mentation clear, I'm sure Daniel has no objection to the proviso that
his thesis applies to typical workers doing typical jobs that most people
assume are necessary jobs.

Now Daniel pulls a secret weapon out of his kit and branishes it about:
"cultural reproduction."  Since he does not define it, I can only take
it on face, and as such, I don't see what there is to object to.  I
presume that culture is patterns of behavior, symbols, values, etc.
that are socially transmitted.  Culture, then, is what we receive from
the past and, some would say, empowers us in the present (I would dis-
agree, but still see culture as a very necessary aspect of empowerment
in the present).  I'm glad most of my children more or less learned to
read and write, because that equips them to cope with life in our society.
I really do appreciate the work of their teachers, whose job in part is
cultural reproduction, including knowing how to read and write.  I agree
that we don't live by reproduction alone, if I can twist the saying, but
just like bread, life would be hell without it.  But culture is a notori-
ously hard word to define, and so I have to be careful to presume too
much here. In context I get the impression that by culture Daniel means
mental phenomena (in other words, a lathe would not be part of culture),
but then the concept "cultural reproduction" begins to escape me.

He joffers another criteria of judgement when he apparently contrasts
mental work (bad) with work leading to a physical product (good).  Frank-
ly, this confuses me.  Informational products all seem to have physical
form (the molecular-level alterations to our floppy disk ferrite is just
as physical as, say, break pads in our automobile), and all physical
products, to speak properly, are the bearers of information. Likewise,
I'm not overwhelmed by the distinction between mental and physical labor.
Admittedly, when I was young, indoor work seemed the best of all possible
worlds, and once indoors, one begins to think about the jobs in which one
wears a tie.  Some of this was a realistic assessment, but a lot of it
was snobbishness.  The fact is, of course, that people doing physical
labor use their heads all the time, and to some extent, people doing
mental work have to put out physical effort as well. For example, a
word processor usually works quite hard, experiencing physical exhaustion
and all sorts of aches and pains.  I guess I just not inclined to be
spontaneously persuaded by these categories, and especially the value
judgements that might be attached to them. (that's "criterion" in the
first sentence, by the way).

Daniel goes on, and I'm not sure I follow.  The cut-backs he refers to
seem to mean a different thing for him than to me.  Putting aside the
obvious deadwood, as I hoped we could do, the cutbacks seem to me part
of a complex process.  First of all, these people are friends and nei-
ghbors, and I tend to think of them as underpaid, underappreciated, hard
workers. Perhaps I'm naive, but cutbacks starts off as simply equated
with pain and misery.  I see that a lot of the cutbacks are in middle
management, which I gather are the recently minted MBAs.  I can under-
stant that. Compared to comparable capitalist economies, I gather the
US is bloated with middle management, and it is often pointed to as an
important reason for the lack of US competitiveness, not because they
are non-productive, but because many of the decisions and judgements
they are supposed to make should really be done by production workers.
Also, I'm not impressed with these middle management types (I teach
them, so I should know), and I suspect that many of their skills are
readily tranferred to computer programs carried out by low paid com-
puter operators. Low-paid sweated computer work seems to be taking
the place of costly middle management types, most of whom are useless
as workers anyway (perhaps many a better word here).  I suppose we
could concluded by saying that as capitalist contradictions deepen, labor
is intensified and more expensive labor who don't have enough capacity
to be pushed, are let go.  Since these measures seem just like rational
decisions by management, perhaps Daniel is more concerned about the
original bloat of workers whose task it is to ensure cultural jrepro-
duction.

It all fits into what we calls  New Capitalist Sociey.  Unfortunately
he does not define just what that means.  There is always change, and
sometimes it comes faster and sometimes slower. My favorite period of
drastic change in the quality of life was in the 1870's and '80s. I
don't know about such
things, but my suspicion a case could be made
that the qualitative differences in US life were far greater then than
any time since, including today. So some kind of judgement must be made
to say New Capitalist Society represents a profoundly new departure, and
I imagine that judgement must rest on a theoretical foundation.  Daniel
introduces a theory of cultural exploitation, and while I haven't the
foggiest idea what that means, it does sound quite novel. But what is
the theoretical foundation that instructs us on which features deserves
to be singled out as telling and the rest dismissed as epiphenomena?

Daniel suggests the telling feature of this New Capitalist Society is
that its central contradiction is no longer at the point of production,
but has become a cultural exploitation.  Without the discussion this
point obviously needs and deserves, I don't have much to criticize here.
But some questions come to mind.  Are we talking about the US economy
or the world economy, and if the former, are we placing it in the required
world context?  True, it is the fashion these days to talk about global
interdependence, and we could debate whether capitalist corporations are
international, transnational, or supranational.  But in the end, I think
we could all agree that today the national economy in isolation is no
longer conceivable.  I conclude from this that all sorts of statistics
abot the changing character of US industry or workforce means little if
not seen in relation to world trends. If, for example, it could be shown
that the total global industrial production was on the rise and that the
net product from industrial production supported a wide range of service
jobs, then I see no reason to assume that the central contradiction is
no longer at the point of production.  Even if we take the US in isola-
tion, I'm not sure of the theoretical justification for the assumtion
even if the service sector is growing relative to the industrial sector
of the economy.  It's like the discusison of small business vs. big in-
dustry. Sure the aggregate employment in small business in greater, but
I gather most people assume that the basic health of the US economy de-
pends far more on whether we can export steel or sell cars made in the
US, than small business.  Some time last year, I believe, Scientific
American had a very nice article on the issue of the merits of a indus-
trial economy vs. service.  Now, I have no idea whatsoever what cultural
exploitation is, and so had best change the subject at this point.

Let me address several of his other points briefly.  Daniel wonders at
"working-class ideology" vs. Marxism. Well, we don't call bourgeois ideology
"Smithism," I suspect for several reasons. In any developing science, if
we want to emphasize its progressive features, we avoid calling it after
its founders, but if we want to emphasize its conservative features, then
we do. Physical science has not been Newtonian for almost a century, but
the standard view of biological evolution is still recognizably Darwinian.
A parallelism between capitalist ideology and Marxism in terms of terminolo-
gy is not symetrical, probably in favor of the former (I realize the oppo-
site argument could be made too, but at least the lack of symmetry does
put the conventional terminology to question).  Secondly, and more contro-
versally, I can be argued that Marxism-Leninism is the only coherent ideolo-
gy that is specific to the modern working class.  I don't think it would be
too hard to substantiate this, and if true, it is a significant fact that
is seldom pointed out explicitly.  That is really why the term "working-
class ideology" appeals to me.

Next, Daniel bemoans (I think) the extermination of anthropology and so-
ciology departments. I'm sorry to say I'm not as mooved as he is.  First
I have known too many ordinary working people whose lives were ruined by
HUAC.  Some people seem to think HUAC went only after a few big shots or
well known figures.  I've known so many many people who were just ordinary
folk, who were singled just for example, or little people with real gump-
tion who refused to be intimidated and paid the price.  I think of such
a sweet and kind person as Henry Winston, forced to spend a good part of
his life in prison for his convictions, and who lost his entire eyesight
as a result.  I'm sorry for anyone out of a job, but that is happening a
lot these days.  Also, as fond as I am of anthropology and sociology de-
partments, I have to keep in mind is not a relatively few faculty who
loose, but the hugh number of students who will be deprived because they
will no longer have access to those sociology and anthropology courses.
I really feel sorry for the students.  They are victims of the deepening
contradictions of capitalism.  To take myself as an example, I have per-
haps taught between 3-4,000 students. I'm certainly expendible, but if
those thousands of students had missed out my history courses, that would
be a tragedy.  It's the working class that's being shafted.

This is why I'm not too sympathetic to intellectuals who plead that the
reason for their persecution is their ideological position. I'm sorry
I mentioned my own lack of promotions, but the real reason is probably
that I don't conform. I wasn't on campus long before I was involved in
a suit that went to the US supreme court, and the university president
lost. Now it happens that the issue had to do with left politics (SDS),
but the real point is that it greatly embarrased the school administra-
tion. Then when things got tight, there had to be a tacit consensus in
the administration as to who would be the winners and who would be the
loosers, and because I did't conform, I slipped into the latter category,
and I have not been promoted since. Most recently when I applied, I was
not recommended by my dean. The sole reason he mentioned (there were
probably other valid reasons, but he didn't mention them) was that I
did not try to socialize with my peers, and particularly have lunch
with him. My dean is a decent guy, just not very swift, so I didn't
have the heart to tell him that I had so much work that I cut out my
lunch hour so give myself more time to do it.  I'm sorry, but I just
don't see faculty as bold knights tilting against the wheels of the
establishment. For one thing, perhaps because I teach in such a modest
institution, but I'd just so glad to see students stimulated to think
at all, that I don't have time to worry about trying to counter the
bourgeois ideology they bring with them into the classroom. I have
arch conservative fellow department members I respect highly because
they challenge the students to think and insist they learn. Also, in
retrospect, I cannot say with confidence that academic Marxists have
contributed greatly to the working class movement. If one discounts
the fact that in all sciences there has been a very heady development
in the last twenty or thirty years, then Marxism seems to have simply
participated in that deepening and diversification. If anything, aca-
demic Marxism has become more isolated from the working class movement
than ever before.

I'm going on here too long. I guess my conclusion is that I don't ne-
cessarily disagree with Daniel, and I suspect I probably agree far more
than not with his points. However, actual situations strike me as so
terribly complex and ambivalent, mixing the necessary and the superflu-
ous, positive and negative.  I agree that we do have to try to sort it
all out, to make sense of it as a whole to the best we can, and undoubtedly
doing so requires certain simplifications, shortcuts, or exaggerations.
However, the key organizing principle, for I assume there must be a small
number axioms or organizing princples to support such a grand project,
must be absolutely clear, fully explicit, an amply validated in any way
we can accomplish it.  People write volumes upon volumes, with all their
supporting apparatus, references, and calculations.  But this is just
the icing on the cake, a bow in honor of traditional professional stan-
dards of legitimacy.  What really counts in the long run is the vision,
and not only must that vision be true, it must be transparent.  It is
here that I have difficulty with Daniel's thesis: it is not transparent
here that I have difficulty with Daniel's thesis: it is not transparent

Haines Brown (brownh@ccsua.ctstateu.edu)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU