DEFINITION OF PROLETARIAT –Sukomal sen
Since the days of Marx, things have changed enormously and as has been pointed out, the technological revolution has also led to a revolutionary change in the labour process. For the present generation of Marxists this change has to be properly understood and things are to be judged and examined in the light of the basic formulations of Marx and Engels.
The working class has always had to undergo a particular pattern of labour-process depending upon the structure of capitalist accumulation and technological developments of the instruments of labour. In Marx's day a huge number of wage-labourers belonged to the domestic industry. Even in industry, `machinofacture', the distinctively capitalist method of mass production based on the large-scale use of machinery which Marx analysed in depth in Capital (volume one) was limited for much of the nineteenth century to a few advanced sectors, notably the Lancashire Cotton trade. A vast amount of capitalist enterprise was organised on the basis of manual rather than steam-power technologies. In fact, Machinofacture was generalised, not during the period of the Industrial Revolution itself, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the development, especially in the United States, of mass assembly-line production.
The working class did never possess any fixed structure or compo¬sition. Rather, this structure and composition had changed as the needs of capital accumulation have altered. Periods of crisis can be seen at times of reorganisation and restructuring, as ineffi¬cient sectors are run down, bankrupt capitals taken over, and new sectors and more efficient capitals take their places. The working class itself participates in this process as some are destroyed and others created.
In the present era of scientific and technological revolution combined with capitalist globalisation of economy, the capital¬ists are more and more using labour saving devices. Electronics, cybernetics and automation have provided the capitalists with these drastic labour saving devices.
As Marx has said, with the universalisation of education, the merchant capitalists get a ready-made mass of job-seekers who can be employed as commercial wage-workers doing the work of accoun¬tancy, buying and selling etc. Like wise, high level of technical education in computers and automation have also provided the service sector industries the opportunity for recruiting techni¬cally skilled workers for performing the desired job. It means the industrialists need various types of workers doing various types of jobs -- some manual workers, some mechanists, some clerical, some computer-operators, some supervisors and so on. In fact, Marx also visualised this proliferation of the workers in various types of work, all in the interest of the capitalists.
In Capital (volume three), in the chapter on Classes, Marx per¬haps tried to explain this situation but the manuscript remained unfinished.
Marx posed the question and sought to answer, "What makes wage- labourers, capitalists and landlords constitute the three great social classes?
"At first glance -- the identity of revenues and sources of revenues. There are three great social groups whose number, the individuals forming them, live on wages, profit and ground rent respectively, on the realisation of their labour-power, their capital, and their landed property.
"However, from this standpoint, physicians and officials e.g. would also constitute two classes for they belong to two distinct social groups, the members of each of these groups receiving their revenue from one and the same source. The same would also be true of the indefinite fragmentation of interest and rank into which the division of social labour splits labourers as well as capitalists and landlords -- the latter, e.g., into owners of Vineyards, farm owners, owners of forests, mine owners and owners of fisheries." 35 (emphasis added.) Unfortunately, the manu¬script breaks off here and Marx did not complete his observations on the nature of fragmentation and splits of the labourers.
But Marx mentioned `interest and rank' which causes `infinite fragmentation of social labour' which `splits labourers'. In fact, in modern manufacturing industry including service industry the splitting of labourers depending upon skill required and rank is obvious.
In another place Marx said, "The real lever of the overall labour process is increasingly not the individual workers. Instead, labour-power socially combined and the various compelling labour-powers which together form the entire production machine participate in very different ways in the immediate process of making commodities... some work better with their hands, other with their heads, one as a manager, engineer, technologist, etc, the other as overseer, the third as manual labourer or even drudge. An ever-increasing number of types of labour are included in the immediate concept of produc¬tive labourer, and those who perform it are classed as productive workers, workers directly exploited by capital and subordinated to its process of production and expansion." 36 (emphasis added).
So, if what Marx said above is considered in the light of what Marx said in regard to `splitting of labourers', then it is pertinent to conclude that all those who form part of what Marx called `Collective Labour', the complex division of labour in¬volved in producing commodities, are productive workers, even if they do not work with their hand. Moreover, in the light of Marx's analysis of the commercial wage-worker, there is no evi¬dence to suggest that Marx regarded only productive workers in manufacturing industry as forming the proletariat.
In fact, the distinction between productive and unproductive labour is therefore, between labour which contributes to the self-expansion of capital and labour which does not. Marx's main example of the latter is that of domestic servants, the largest single category of workers in Victorian Britain, employed out of the revenue of the middle and upper classes. But one point Marx did not mention that these poor strata of the people who engaged themselves as domestic servants had no other means of livelihood and so they were forced to sell their labour-power. While Marx said of splitting of labourers whatever complex form it may assume, it follows from Marx's analysis of capitalism that socio- economic compulsion to sell one's labour-power is the obvious characteristic of the proletariat. Accordingly all wage-labour¬ers are subject to the fundamental constraints of the capitalist relations of production -- non-ownership of means of production, lack of direct access to the means of livelihood, non-accessibil¬ity of land or insufficient money to purchase the means of live¬lihood without more or less continuous sale of labour-power. These categories will include not only commercial clerks and lower government employees and other numerous number of scattered daily labourers (including domestic servants) since they have no other means of livelihood except selling his or her labour-power.
Here it may be pertinent to heed what Rosa Luxemburg said in her The Accumulation of Capital, Chapter XVI on The Reproduction of Capital and its Social Setting about the sources from which the rural and urban proletariat is recruited. She pointed at the source, "the continued process by which the rural and urban middle strata become proletarian with the decay of peasant economy and of small artisan enterprises, the very process, that is to say, of incessant transition from non-capitalist to capi¬talist conditions of a labour-power that is cast off by pre- capitalist, not capitalist, mode of production in their progres¬sive breakdown and disintegration."37 This analysis is valid not only for 19th century Europe; it is equally valid in the condi¬tions prevailing in India today.
Another point has to be considered in this respect. Marx provided a general definition of service when he said, "A service is nothing more than the useful effect of a use-value be it of a commodity, or be it of labour." He then made an interesting comment on skilled and unskilled labour: "in every process of creating value, the reduction of skilled labour, average social labour e.g. one day of skilled labour to six days of unskilled labour, is unavoidable." 38
A worker who is employed for producing goods renders a service to the capitalists. And because of this service a tangible and vendible object takes shape as a commodity. But when the useful effects of labour do not result in a vendible object then it creates a different situation. Harry Braverman's explanation of these circumstances appears quite logical. He states, "When worker does not offer this labour directly to the user of its effects, but instead sells it to a capitalist, who re-sells it on the commodity market, then we have the capitalist form of production in the field of services." 39
Arguing in detail that service is also a productive labour gener¬ating surplus value in the capitalist relation of production, Braverman makes the following illuminating observation:
"In the history of capitalism while use of one or another form may play a greater role in a particular area, the tendency is towards eradication of distinction among its various forms, particularly in the era of monopoly capitalism, it makes little sense to ground any theory of the economy upon any specially favoured variety of labour process. As these varied forms came under the auspices of capital and become part of the domain of profitable investment, they enter for the capitalist into the realm of general or abstract labour, labour which enlarges capi¬tal. In the modern `Corporation' all forms of labour are employed without any distinction, and in the modern conglomerate Corpora¬tion some divisions carry on manufacturing, others carry on trade, others banking, others mining and still others `service' process. They live peacefully together, and in the final result as recorded in the balance sheet the forms labour disappear entirely in the forms of value." 40 (emphasis added)
The question sometimes arises that since the workers' wages and amenities are rising, of course due to their resistance struggle, whether the workers who are better paid or whose standard of living has risen, still possess a revolutionary potential.
Marx dealt with this question before he wrote Communist Manifes¬to. In his Wage Labour and Capital, Marx observed,
"When productive capital grows, the demand for labour grows; Consequently, the price of labour, wages, goes up. ...
"A noticeable increase in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive capital. The rapid growth of productive capital brings about an equally rapid growth of wealth, luxury, social wants, social enjoyments. Thus, although the enjoyments of the worker have risen, the social satisfaction that they gave has fallen in comparison with the increased enjoyments of the capi¬talist, which are inaccessible to the workers, in comparison with the state of development of society in general. Our desire and pleasure spring from society; we measure them, by society and not by the objects which serve for their satisfaction. Because they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.
"In general, wages are determined not only by the amount of commodities for which I can exchange them. They embody various relations". 41
These words of Marx are quite significant in understanding the present situation when due to workers' struggles and various other factors, the wages and other amenities of the workers have gone up and their standard of living is not also at the same level as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. Capitalism leads to a wider disparity in economic terms between the owners and the wage-workers. The workers may achieve a higher wage level or amenities, but in comparison to that the wealth and prosperity of the owning or propertied class are rising in geometrical progres¬sion.
Particularly, in this era of capitalist globalisation and the triumph of finance capital, this disparity in income is reaching an unprecedented height. Even the protagonist of globalisation, the World Bank in their successive reports has expressed concern at this rapidly widening disparity and that more and more people getting impoverished and jobless and World Bank apprehend an increasing dissatisfaction among the toiling and poorer sections against the ruling regimes.
So it is not a question of how much rise has taken place in the wage level; the question actually centers round whether the toiling sections are getting their due proportion of the income generated in a country. This sense of deprivation and disparity actually gives impetus to working class militancy.
Considering all these facts and formulations, today's manufactur¬ing workers, skilled service sector workers, commercial workers in the mercantile firms and financial institutions like banks, insurances and the clerical and subordinate workers in the serv¬ice to the capitalists in the phenomenally expanded government sectors, the scattered and individual daily workers -- all natu¬rally come within the definition of the wage-workers while the industrial wage-workers form the core of the proletarian class.
Even the domestic workers who have no other way of sustenance than selling their labour-power, though they do not produce any value and not organised against capitalist exploitation but a highly deprived and exploited lot, are also getting proletaria¬nised within the broader definition of the term. But if one sticks to the definition of proletariat to the manual industrial workers only in the pattern of nineteenth century, then the proletariat will be reduced to a small and declining nineteenth century stereotype only and this definition will not be compat¬ible with the reality of the present situation when manual work¬ers in traditional industry are sharply declining giving place to service workers and commercial workers including part-time and casual workers.
All these factors taken together prove the untenability of the fashionable notion that the proletariat is a fast declining class or even disappearing and a `new middle class' is appearing on the scene with high level of wages and amenities who do not possess any militancy of struggle or revolutionary potential.
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Sunday, September 7, 2008
Judicary and Working Class
Judiciary and working class-Prabhat Patnaik
There are at least five clearly discernible tendencies which emerge when we look at a number of verdicts handed down by the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, in the last few years. The first is a tendency to restrict the rights of the working people. The Supreme Court’s verdict in the case of the Tamilnadu government employees, denying their right to go on strike, the Kerala High Court’s judgment against bandhs, and the Calcutta High Court’s ban on public demonstrations (and that too because one judge’s car got held up owing to a demonstration) are examples of such encroachments. These no doubt are particular verdicts, but unless the particularity of the particular is emphasized, what is decreed in one case is open for extension to all cases. In short, the Kerala High Court’s order, or the Calcutta High Court’s order, or the Supreme Court’s order in the case of government employees, is open for more general replication.
Of course, a bandh, a strike, or a demonstration do cause inconvenience for a large number of people, but that is precisely why they are effective weapons in the hands of workers. They never adopt such measures lightly. To believe otherwise is precisely to fall prey to upper class prejudices, as the judiciary has been doing. And if the avoidance of inconvenience to others were the over-riding objective, then a directive to the government to avoid situations that call forth such actions would not have been inapposite. No such directive however accompanied the verdicts. Instead, the right to strike enjoyed by the working class all over the world, and obtained after long years of struggle; the right to call bandhs which were a part of India’s freedom struggle and cannot suddenly be termed illegitimate; and the right to hold demonstrations which is an accepted part of any democratic society, and widely used all over the world, including recently in the metropolitan centers of the advanced countries against the invasion of Iraq by their own governments; were all taken away at one stroke of a whimsical pen.
In the same category incidentally is a whole set of judgements, including by the Supreme Court, sanctioning the dismissal of an employee for misbehaving with the management. In a case relating to the dismissal of two Bennett Coleman (BCCL) workmen for fighting with their officers, the Supreme Court ruled that not only could the employee be dismissed, but even his gratuity could be forfeited. Likewise, upholding an order dismissing an employee of the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board (MPEB) who had fought with an officer, a Supreme Court bench sternly pronounced that discipline is the “sine qua non for the efficient working of the organisation” and that “obedience to authority in a workplace is not slavery”. In another case, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of an employee by Bharat Forge who had fallen asleep. The bench made the sweeping statement that falling asleep at work amounted to a level of misconduct that could justify dismissal. It also upheld, on an appeal filed by Mahindra and Mahindra, the company’s decision to dismiss an employee for using “filthy” language against his boss 11 years earlier. According to the judgement, using abusive language against a superior at the workplace is reason enough for dismissal.
It is nobody’s argument of course that misbehavior should be condoned, but as any Primary School teacher knows, what appears as misbehavior on the part of one could well have been provoked by the actions of the other, so that deciding culpability is not easy. To give management carte blanche under these circumstances is tantamount to encroaching on the rights of the workers, to abetting the victimization of workers by management.
The second tendency is to “roll back” affirmative action. The most obvious example is the recent verdict that “reservations” in admissions need not be adhered to in the case of educational institutions which receive no funding from the State. This verdict not only is against affirmative action but also arbitrarily restricts the domain of State intervention. It is equivalent to saying that the State has no right to levy income taxes on employees outside the public sector. The proposition that the State is an overarching entity whose domain of intervention covers the entire universe of civil society and is not confined to only that part which is financed by it, is accepted in every modern society; and yet the Supreme Court has chosen to jettison it for reasons having little to do with any serious social philosophy and with consequences that are far-reaching and dangerous.
The third tendency is an encroachment on people’s livelihoods and rights of domicile in the name of improving the environment. The classic case of this was the shutting down of factories in Delhi for the sake of reducing pollution, and the throwing out of work of thousands of workers. More recently, pronouncements from the Supreme Court bench that “Delhi should not be allowed to go the way of Mumbai”, meaning that restrictions must be placed on the people’s right to domicile in the metropolis in order to avoid undue strains on civic amenities, suggest a judicial endorsement of an attack on the livelihood of the metropolitan poor and on a basic right which they have enjoyed for long. To be sure, strains on civic amenities should be avoided, and polluting industries should be shut down. But these are issues whose settlement requires proper redressal for those adversely affected. The modus operandi of such settlement moreover is through discussion and the emergence of a social consensus. To attempt to “solve” them through judicial diktats is not just ham-handed; it is profoundly anti-people and betrays typical upper class prejudice.
The fourth tendency is the encroachment on the lives of the people in the name of preventing illegal immigration. The worst example of this is the recent striking down of the IMDT Act by the Supreme Court. Illegal migration is a bogey raised by the Right. While the perniciousness of this bogey comes home to us when it is used as a means to harass Indians in metropolitan countries (the most obnoxious instance of such harassment being the so-called “virginity tests” that used to be carried out in Britain), the use of the same bogey at home as a means of harassing the poor, especially those belonging to the minority community, in the name of preventing Bangladeshi immigration, scarcely arouses anger. And the judiciary, in yielding to this bogey, echoes the prejudices of the Right which in turn reflect upper class prejudices.
The fifth tendency is a general endorsement by the judiciary of the neo-liberal outlook. This is manifest in innumerable judgements, notably on the BALCO privatization issue, the Orissa Bauxite case, and the Rajasthan mining issue. It is also manifest in the rather sympathetic treatment meted out by the Supreme Court to Union Carbide on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy issue, which was very much in keeping with the neo-liberal spirit of bending over backwards to accommodate multinational corporations.
The foregoing discussion is far from exhaustive, both in the listing of tendencies and in the listing of cases. I have not included in my review the socially reactionary judgements handed down by the judiciary, such as the recent infamous judgement of the Delhi High Court allowing child marriage (of a girl as young as 15 years). I have focussed here only on those cases which impinge on the rights of the oppressed classes and have done so only through a few illustrative cases. A more detailed, though again by no means exhaustive, list of cases where the judiciary has given important verdicts against the common people in recent years can be found in the Appendix to this paper.
Three caveats are in order here. First, to say that the judiciary has shown an anti-people attitude in important verdicts in recent years does not mean that its record is uniformly dismal. There have no doubt been other instances where it has shown concern for the poor, a notable example being the Supreme Court’s directive for the distribution of foodgrains to the BPL population. Much no doubt depends upon the individual judges. Such concern for the poor on the part of the judiciary, however, has been on the whole the exception rather than the rule.
The second caveat is that notwithstanding its open espousal of current bourgeois attitudes, or of the social philosophy of what someone has aptly called “muscular liberalism”, in cases relating to the denial of basic rights to individuals, the judiciary has been more sympathetic. But that is entirely in keeping with the bourgeois outlook. An attenuation of the rights of the people as a whole can go very well with, and indeed does go very well with, scrupulousness in safeguarding of the rights of individuals qua individuals. What is more, this scrupulousness also tends to obscure the larger picture of the judiciary’s playing the leading role in attenuating the democratic rights of the people as a whole.
The third caveat is that this role of the judiciary should not be attributed to any malevolence on its part. It is as much subject to the neo-liberal barrage unleashed by the media, and by imperialist agencies generally, as anybody else, and it imbibes these ideas and prejudices. But precisely because it is in the position of being an arbiter on people’s lives, without facing the constraints that other organs of the State face, its attitudes and prejudices have a far more profound impact in restricting people’s democratic space than those of any other organ of the State. In short its acquiring a leading role in essaying a “thermidor” in the Indian context has to be located within specific historical circumstances rather than in any individual or collective malevolence on the part of the judicial luminaries. And an inevitable fall-out of these circumstances is the judiciary’s thrusting itself forward as superior to the other two organs of the State.
*********
There are at least five clearly discernible tendencies which emerge when we look at a number of verdicts handed down by the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, in the last few years. The first is a tendency to restrict the rights of the working people. The Supreme Court’s verdict in the case of the Tamilnadu government employees, denying their right to go on strike, the Kerala High Court’s judgment against bandhs, and the Calcutta High Court’s ban on public demonstrations (and that too because one judge’s car got held up owing to a demonstration) are examples of such encroachments. These no doubt are particular verdicts, but unless the particularity of the particular is emphasized, what is decreed in one case is open for extension to all cases. In short, the Kerala High Court’s order, or the Calcutta High Court’s order, or the Supreme Court’s order in the case of government employees, is open for more general replication.
Of course, a bandh, a strike, or a demonstration do cause inconvenience for a large number of people, but that is precisely why they are effective weapons in the hands of workers. They never adopt such measures lightly. To believe otherwise is precisely to fall prey to upper class prejudices, as the judiciary has been doing. And if the avoidance of inconvenience to others were the over-riding objective, then a directive to the government to avoid situations that call forth such actions would not have been inapposite. No such directive however accompanied the verdicts. Instead, the right to strike enjoyed by the working class all over the world, and obtained after long years of struggle; the right to call bandhs which were a part of India’s freedom struggle and cannot suddenly be termed illegitimate; and the right to hold demonstrations which is an accepted part of any democratic society, and widely used all over the world, including recently in the metropolitan centers of the advanced countries against the invasion of Iraq by their own governments; were all taken away at one stroke of a whimsical pen.
In the same category incidentally is a whole set of judgements, including by the Supreme Court, sanctioning the dismissal of an employee for misbehaving with the management. In a case relating to the dismissal of two Bennett Coleman (BCCL) workmen for fighting with their officers, the Supreme Court ruled that not only could the employee be dismissed, but even his gratuity could be forfeited. Likewise, upholding an order dismissing an employee of the Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board (MPEB) who had fought with an officer, a Supreme Court bench sternly pronounced that discipline is the “sine qua non for the efficient working of the organisation” and that “obedience to authority in a workplace is not slavery”. In another case, the Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of an employee by Bharat Forge who had fallen asleep. The bench made the sweeping statement that falling asleep at work amounted to a level of misconduct that could justify dismissal. It also upheld, on an appeal filed by Mahindra and Mahindra, the company’s decision to dismiss an employee for using “filthy” language against his boss 11 years earlier. According to the judgement, using abusive language against a superior at the workplace is reason enough for dismissal.
It is nobody’s argument of course that misbehavior should be condoned, but as any Primary School teacher knows, what appears as misbehavior on the part of one could well have been provoked by the actions of the other, so that deciding culpability is not easy. To give management carte blanche under these circumstances is tantamount to encroaching on the rights of the workers, to abetting the victimization of workers by management.
The second tendency is to “roll back” affirmative action. The most obvious example is the recent verdict that “reservations” in admissions need not be adhered to in the case of educational institutions which receive no funding from the State. This verdict not only is against affirmative action but also arbitrarily restricts the domain of State intervention. It is equivalent to saying that the State has no right to levy income taxes on employees outside the public sector. The proposition that the State is an overarching entity whose domain of intervention covers the entire universe of civil society and is not confined to only that part which is financed by it, is accepted in every modern society; and yet the Supreme Court has chosen to jettison it for reasons having little to do with any serious social philosophy and with consequences that are far-reaching and dangerous.
The third tendency is an encroachment on people’s livelihoods and rights of domicile in the name of improving the environment. The classic case of this was the shutting down of factories in Delhi for the sake of reducing pollution, and the throwing out of work of thousands of workers. More recently, pronouncements from the Supreme Court bench that “Delhi should not be allowed to go the way of Mumbai”, meaning that restrictions must be placed on the people’s right to domicile in the metropolis in order to avoid undue strains on civic amenities, suggest a judicial endorsement of an attack on the livelihood of the metropolitan poor and on a basic right which they have enjoyed for long. To be sure, strains on civic amenities should be avoided, and polluting industries should be shut down. But these are issues whose settlement requires proper redressal for those adversely affected. The modus operandi of such settlement moreover is through discussion and the emergence of a social consensus. To attempt to “solve” them through judicial diktats is not just ham-handed; it is profoundly anti-people and betrays typical upper class prejudice.
The fourth tendency is the encroachment on the lives of the people in the name of preventing illegal immigration. The worst example of this is the recent striking down of the IMDT Act by the Supreme Court. Illegal migration is a bogey raised by the Right. While the perniciousness of this bogey comes home to us when it is used as a means to harass Indians in metropolitan countries (the most obnoxious instance of such harassment being the so-called “virginity tests” that used to be carried out in Britain), the use of the same bogey at home as a means of harassing the poor, especially those belonging to the minority community, in the name of preventing Bangladeshi immigration, scarcely arouses anger. And the judiciary, in yielding to this bogey, echoes the prejudices of the Right which in turn reflect upper class prejudices.
The fifth tendency is a general endorsement by the judiciary of the neo-liberal outlook. This is manifest in innumerable judgements, notably on the BALCO privatization issue, the Orissa Bauxite case, and the Rajasthan mining issue. It is also manifest in the rather sympathetic treatment meted out by the Supreme Court to Union Carbide on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy issue, which was very much in keeping with the neo-liberal spirit of bending over backwards to accommodate multinational corporations.
The foregoing discussion is far from exhaustive, both in the listing of tendencies and in the listing of cases. I have not included in my review the socially reactionary judgements handed down by the judiciary, such as the recent infamous judgement of the Delhi High Court allowing child marriage (of a girl as young as 15 years). I have focussed here only on those cases which impinge on the rights of the oppressed classes and have done so only through a few illustrative cases. A more detailed, though again by no means exhaustive, list of cases where the judiciary has given important verdicts against the common people in recent years can be found in the Appendix to this paper.
Three caveats are in order here. First, to say that the judiciary has shown an anti-people attitude in important verdicts in recent years does not mean that its record is uniformly dismal. There have no doubt been other instances where it has shown concern for the poor, a notable example being the Supreme Court’s directive for the distribution of foodgrains to the BPL population. Much no doubt depends upon the individual judges. Such concern for the poor on the part of the judiciary, however, has been on the whole the exception rather than the rule.
The second caveat is that notwithstanding its open espousal of current bourgeois attitudes, or of the social philosophy of what someone has aptly called “muscular liberalism”, in cases relating to the denial of basic rights to individuals, the judiciary has been more sympathetic. But that is entirely in keeping with the bourgeois outlook. An attenuation of the rights of the people as a whole can go very well with, and indeed does go very well with, scrupulousness in safeguarding of the rights of individuals qua individuals. What is more, this scrupulousness also tends to obscure the larger picture of the judiciary’s playing the leading role in attenuating the democratic rights of the people as a whole.
The third caveat is that this role of the judiciary should not be attributed to any malevolence on its part. It is as much subject to the neo-liberal barrage unleashed by the media, and by imperialist agencies generally, as anybody else, and it imbibes these ideas and prejudices. But precisely because it is in the position of being an arbiter on people’s lives, without facing the constraints that other organs of the State face, its attitudes and prejudices have a far more profound impact in restricting people’s democratic space than those of any other organ of the State. In short its acquiring a leading role in essaying a “thermidor” in the Indian context has to be located within specific historical circumstances rather than in any individual or collective malevolence on the part of the judicial luminaries. And an inevitable fall-out of these circumstances is the judiciary’s thrusting itself forward as superior to the other two organs of the State.
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Marx and Trade Unions
Marx And Trade Unions
B T Randive
WHEN Karl Marx entered on his political activities, the trade unions of the working class had just started coming into existence. Their emergence was an anathema to the capitalist rulers, and they were banned in many countries.
Those who thought of socialism in those days- the utopian socialists, the petty bourgeois socialists and others-did not understand the importance of this form of working class organisation. Some of them were openly opposed to trade unions, considering them to be useless and harmful, while others demanded a ban on strikes for being harmful to social development and interests.
Others still saw in the trade unions and strike the exclusive instrument of social change. But they would not go beyond economic struggle and abjured all politics on principle, as compromise with the existing order. None of these viewpoints understood the link of the trade union struggle with the struggle for the emancipation of the working class and society from capitalist bondage and with the struggle for the capture of political power by the working class.
This was because they did not understand the content of the modern class struggle and the role of the working class as the leading force of the socialist revolution.
For Marx, the working class was the only revolutionary class facing the capitalist class. In the Communist Manifesto he said: “Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.”
Every activity of this class was therefore, important for Marx-activity in which the class got consciousness to move forward. The formation of trade unions and the trade union movement were important steps in the formation of a class, a common class-consciousness. The superior organisation- the political party of the working class could not be formed and expanded in isolation from this practical struggle involving the large mass of workers. That is why the statutes of the International Working Men’s Association provided for affiliation of trade unions and other organisations of the working class, along with individual membership.
In the conduct of the historic International Working Men’s Association, as well as after its dissolution, Marx continued to attach due importance to the trade unions in the revolutionary struggle of the working class and at the same time exposed the leadership which severed this link.
The aim of the International Working Men’s Association, in the eyes of Marx, was not only to unite the trade unions for daily struggles and international cooperation. The trade unions, of course, achieved primary importance because they represented the direct class activity of the working class. The real aim was to work for the political unification of the international working class movement in the struggle for social emancipation – political organisation of the working class. It was arrived at by focusing on organisation which, in the words of Engels, “would demonstrate bodily, so to speak, the international character of the socialist movement, both to the workers themselves and to the bourgeois and to the Governments-for the encouragement and strengthening of the proletariat, for striking fears into the hearts of its enemies.” (Selected Works, vol. 3, page 82). To achieve this purpose it was necessary to pay close attention to the trade union movement.
B T Randive
WHEN Karl Marx entered on his political activities, the trade unions of the working class had just started coming into existence. Their emergence was an anathema to the capitalist rulers, and they were banned in many countries.
Those who thought of socialism in those days- the utopian socialists, the petty bourgeois socialists and others-did not understand the importance of this form of working class organisation. Some of them were openly opposed to trade unions, considering them to be useless and harmful, while others demanded a ban on strikes for being harmful to social development and interests.
Others still saw in the trade unions and strike the exclusive instrument of social change. But they would not go beyond economic struggle and abjured all politics on principle, as compromise with the existing order. None of these viewpoints understood the link of the trade union struggle with the struggle for the emancipation of the working class and society from capitalist bondage and with the struggle for the capture of political power by the working class.
This was because they did not understand the content of the modern class struggle and the role of the working class as the leading force of the socialist revolution.
For Marx, the working class was the only revolutionary class facing the capitalist class. In the Communist Manifesto he said: “Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.”
Every activity of this class was therefore, important for Marx-activity in which the class got consciousness to move forward. The formation of trade unions and the trade union movement were important steps in the formation of a class, a common class-consciousness. The superior organisation- the political party of the working class could not be formed and expanded in isolation from this practical struggle involving the large mass of workers. That is why the statutes of the International Working Men’s Association provided for affiliation of trade unions and other organisations of the working class, along with individual membership.
In the conduct of the historic International Working Men’s Association, as well as after its dissolution, Marx continued to attach due importance to the trade unions in the revolutionary struggle of the working class and at the same time exposed the leadership which severed this link.
The aim of the International Working Men’s Association, in the eyes of Marx, was not only to unite the trade unions for daily struggles and international cooperation. The trade unions, of course, achieved primary importance because they represented the direct class activity of the working class. The real aim was to work for the political unification of the international working class movement in the struggle for social emancipation – political organisation of the working class. It was arrived at by focusing on organisation which, in the words of Engels, “would demonstrate bodily, so to speak, the international character of the socialist movement, both to the workers themselves and to the bourgeois and to the Governments-for the encouragement and strengthening of the proletariat, for striking fears into the hearts of its enemies.” (Selected Works, vol. 3, page 82). To achieve this purpose it was necessary to pay close attention to the trade union movement.
Conditions of Work and Employment
Conditions of Work and Unemployment
2.25 The intensified exploitation of the working class is the main danger of
the current phase of capitalist development. The crisis in the traditional
industries and the large–scale closure of small units have deprived lakhs
of workers of their livelihood. Employment in the public sector declined
from 194 lakhs in 1994 to 182 lakhs in 2004. Casualisation of labour,
outsourcing and widespread use of contract workers have subjected the
workers to greater exploitation and deprived them of their rights. Savage
attacks on workers for forming trade unions is a common occurrence
particularly in the northern states like Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana
and Uttar Pradesh. The central and state governments turn a blind eye to
labour laws being grossly violated and the rights of workers being denied.
2.26 Nearly two decades of liberalisation have led to the widening of
economic, social and regional inequalities. According to a recent report by
the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector
(NCEUS), by the end of 2004–05, about 836 million or 77 per cent of the
population were earning below Rs. 20 per day or Rs. 600 per month. The
per capita income in India in 2004–05 was Rs. 23, 241 a year or Rs. 1937 a
month. This per capita income is more than three times what is earned by
more than 77 per cent of the population.
2.27 According to the Annual Survey of Industries, the share of wages in
the net value in the industrial sector, which was 30.28 per cent in 1981–82,
has fallen steadily to 17.89 per cent in 1997–98 and further to 12.94 per cent
in 2004–05. According to the Eleventh Plan document, wage share in theorganised industrial sector has halved after 1980s and is now among the
lowest in the world.
28
(i) Based on a minimum wage as recommended by the National
Commission of Rural Labour of 1991, NCEUS has found that about 50
per cent of the men workers and about 87 per cent of women workers
in urban areas and 47 per cent of men workers and 87 per cent of
women workers in the rural areas get wages below the national
minimum wage.
(ii) The rate of unemployment has increased from 6.1 per cent in 1993–94
to 8.3 per cent in 2004–05.
iii) Unemployment among agricultural labour households has risen from
9.5 per cent in 1993–94 to 15.3 per cent in 2004–05.
(iv) Unemployment for rural males increased from 5.6 percent in 1993–94
to 8.0 per cent in 2004–05 while for rural females it increased from 5.6
per cent in 1993–94 to 8.7 per cent in 2004–05.
(v) Impoverishment and unemployment in the rural areas is leading to
large–scale migration of men and women to cities where they are
subjected to terrible exploitation.
(vi) The fact that 2.11 crore households from 200 districts demanded
minimum wages under the NREGA in 2006–07 is indicative of the
extent of joblessness and distress prevailing in the rural areas. The
distress due to loss of live lihood among the handloom weavers and
workers in traditional industries has led to suicides, the most glaring
being the suicides among weavers in Varanasi.
29 Due to imperialist globalisation and neoliberal policies, the plight of
the common people has worsened. The soaring land prices, real estate
speculation and the entry of FDI in real estate have put house sites and
housing out of the reach of the ordinary people including the middle class.
The corporatisation of the health system and the lifting of price controls on
drugs have made medical treatment and medicines prohibitively
expensive. The National Family Health Survey of 2005–06 has shown that
40 per cent of India’s under-three year old children are underweight, 23
percent are wasted (stunted) and 70 per cent anaemic. The Survey also
found that more than one-third of women are underweight and more than
half of women in India (55 per cent) are anaemic. All these point towards
the extent of malnutrition in the country. The privatisation of basic
services like water supply and electricity has further burdened the people.
The criminal gangs and the mafia in the urban areas are preying on the
people, making their lives and property insecure.
From Draft resolution of CPI (M) 19th Party Congress.
2.25 The intensified exploitation of the working class is the main danger of
the current phase of capitalist development. The crisis in the traditional
industries and the large–scale closure of small units have deprived lakhs
of workers of their livelihood. Employment in the public sector declined
from 194 lakhs in 1994 to 182 lakhs in 2004. Casualisation of labour,
outsourcing and widespread use of contract workers have subjected the
workers to greater exploitation and deprived them of their rights. Savage
attacks on workers for forming trade unions is a common occurrence
particularly in the northern states like Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana
and Uttar Pradesh. The central and state governments turn a blind eye to
labour laws being grossly violated and the rights of workers being denied.
2.26 Nearly two decades of liberalisation have led to the widening of
economic, social and regional inequalities. According to a recent report by
the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector
(NCEUS), by the end of 2004–05, about 836 million or 77 per cent of the
population were earning below Rs. 20 per day or Rs. 600 per month. The
per capita income in India in 2004–05 was Rs. 23, 241 a year or Rs. 1937 a
month. This per capita income is more than three times what is earned by
more than 77 per cent of the population.
2.27 According to the Annual Survey of Industries, the share of wages in
the net value in the industrial sector, which was 30.28 per cent in 1981–82,
has fallen steadily to 17.89 per cent in 1997–98 and further to 12.94 per cent
in 2004–05. According to the Eleventh Plan document, wage share in theorganised industrial sector has halved after 1980s and is now among the
lowest in the world.
28
(i) Based on a minimum wage as recommended by the National
Commission of Rural Labour of 1991, NCEUS has found that about 50
per cent of the men workers and about 87 per cent of women workers
in urban areas and 47 per cent of men workers and 87 per cent of
women workers in the rural areas get wages below the national
minimum wage.
(ii) The rate of unemployment has increased from 6.1 per cent in 1993–94
to 8.3 per cent in 2004–05.
iii) Unemployment among agricultural labour households has risen from
9.5 per cent in 1993–94 to 15.3 per cent in 2004–05.
(iv) Unemployment for rural males increased from 5.6 percent in 1993–94
to 8.0 per cent in 2004–05 while for rural females it increased from 5.6
per cent in 1993–94 to 8.7 per cent in 2004–05.
(v) Impoverishment and unemployment in the rural areas is leading to
large–scale migration of men and women to cities where they are
subjected to terrible exploitation.
(vi) The fact that 2.11 crore households from 200 districts demanded
minimum wages under the NREGA in 2006–07 is indicative of the
extent of joblessness and distress prevailing in the rural areas. The
distress due to loss of live lihood among the handloom weavers and
workers in traditional industries has led to suicides, the most glaring
being the suicides among weavers in Varanasi.
29 Due to imperialist globalisation and neoliberal policies, the plight of
the common people has worsened. The soaring land prices, real estate
speculation and the entry of FDI in real estate have put house sites and
housing out of the reach of the ordinary people including the middle class.
The corporatisation of the health system and the lifting of price controls on
drugs have made medical treatment and medicines prohibitively
expensive. The National Family Health Survey of 2005–06 has shown that
40 per cent of India’s under-three year old children are underweight, 23
percent are wasted (stunted) and 70 per cent anaemic. The Survey also
found that more than one-third of women are underweight and more than
half of women in India (55 per cent) are anaemic. All these point towards
the extent of malnutrition in the country. The privatisation of basic
services like water supply and electricity has further burdened the people.
The criminal gangs and the mafia in the urban areas are preying on the
people, making their lives and property insecure.
From Draft resolution of CPI (M) 19th Party Congress.
Friday, September 5, 2008
South Korian Workers Struggles.
The Branch Council of the CPSU/CSA notes that:
- The South Korean government is repressing democratic trade union activity in
- Arrest warrants have issued against 21 senior leaders of the Korean Council of Trade Unions (KCTU) including the KCTU President, First Vice President, the General Secretary and the senior leadership of the metal workers union (KMWU);
- There was a significant abuse of force employed by military police in blockading the union national office and raiding the family homes of union leaders;
- Ms Jin Yeong-ok, First Vice President and a senior leader of the Korean Metal Unions was arrested and imprisoned;
- The Hyundai corporation continues to deny collective bargaining rights to the KMTU;
We call on the South Korean Government to:
- Unconditionally revoke all arrest warrants and immediately release the jailed unionists;
- Recognize that South Korean unions have an inalienable right to define the role of their organizations free from government or corporate pressure;
- Ensure that the Hyundai corporation recognizes the collective bargaining rights of the KMTU;
If the Korean Government and Hyundai corporation fails to address our concerns about the repression of Korean worker leaders, the CPSU/CSA, together with other SIGTUR participants, will plan and execute a staged action campaign that will continue until the ongoing repression of union and democratic freedoms ceases.
We resolve to:
- Send a letter of protest to the South Korean Government (ref Annexure A),
- Send a message of solidarity to the KCTU, (refer annexure B), articulating our commitment to support their struggle for collective rights and democratic freedom.
- Support the formation of a delegation to meet with the Korean Ambassador in
- Organize a meeting with the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs to convey our concerns over the recent arrests of KCTU leaders and to call on the South Korean Government to honor and implement the recommendations of the ILO committee on freedom of association.
- Support a campaign of global action against the Korean Government and Hyundai, by SIGTUR and its participants, if the South Korean government fails to positively address our concerns.
- Urge the
ANNEXURE A
president@cwd.go.kr, foreign@president.go.kr
cc: The Police Commissioner,,National Police Agency, Mr Eo Cheong-soo
Your Excellency President Lee Myung-bak,
The CPSU/CSA represents the industrial rights of all State public service workers in
We call on you to uphold the democratic process which your country consistently claims differentiates it from your northern counterpart, and to release the unionists who have been detained in flagrant violation of the ILO convention on freedom of association.
The CPSU/CSA urges you and the government of your country, to respect fundamental human rights and the rights of workers to organize and express views on issues of social justice. In particular, we note that the Hyundai corporation is totally remiss in its failure to recognize the collective bargaining rights of the KMTU. We seek your assurance that trade unionists in your country will enjoy freedom of assembly and the right to democratic dissent, which are the hallmarks of a liberal democracy.
In the interests of social justice.
Branch Secretary
CPSU/CSA
ANNEXURE B
Comrade Lee Changgeun
International Executive Director
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
Dear Comrade Lee,
on behalf of the CPSU/CSA, which represents the industrial rights of all West Australian Public Service workers, I wish to extend our support and solidarity in your struggle for social justice and democratic trade union rights.
We condemn the recent oppressive actions of the South Korean government against your leaders and affiliates of your confederation.
Our union extends its sympathy to union comrades and their families, who suffer oppression under the cruel tyranny of government and profit-hungry corporations.
A copy of our protest to the President of your country is attached. We will continue to support your struggle and will, together with other SIGTUR participants, initiate international pressure against the forces that continue to deny the South Korean people freedom of expression and the right to organize.
In solidarity,
Branch Secretary
CPSU/CSA.
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