#proletarianisation

[swamp-wanderer]

Historically, proletarianization was always partially incomplete. The term itself designates a transition, by definition spanning both worlds of the “new working class” and those being siphoned into it. The incomplete character of the process has always taken on both racial and gendered characteristics, with the work of immigrants, black people, the colonized, the indigenous and women all deemed to be of less value than the “normal” work of those who were formally acknowledged as wage laborers, and also less likely to be remunerated with a wage at all. Even where more explicit racial, national or gender divides may not exist, the same “incomplete” characteristics are produced by the uneven character of industrialization—as can be observed with the “Okies” in 1930s California or the southern “Terroni” working in the factories of northern Italy in the 1950s. In every locale, as the proletarianizaton process was initiated, the reproduction of these new workers’ labor-power was externalized, with wages often too low or inconsistent to fully accommodate basic expenses, requiring complex networks of unpaid care work, foraging, squatting and other informal economies making up the difference—usually at the double expense of workers who were also women. When these “incomplete” proletarians became too troublesome, a wide array of responses were available depending on the situation, spanning from extermination to deportation or assimilation. This is not an accidental side effect of proletarianization, but rather a necessarily disavowed component of the process: “This [process of racialization] was the flipside of what Marxists call “proletarianization”. Marked by ongoing histories of exclusion from the wage and violent subjugation to varieties of “unfree labor”, racialised populations were inserted into early capitalism in ways that continue to define contemporary surplus populations.” The “flipside,” then, was always a constitutive element of proletarianization itself.

No Way Forward, No Way Back: China in the Age of Riots

Chuang

[swamp-wanderer]

On the 'squares', revolutionary groupings and tendencies were active, but as a minority. Most of the participants were 'active on the streets' for the first time and demonstrated considerable ability to self-organise daily life and reproduction - but they were not 'political'. The media picture of these movements were largely influenced by the social middle-strata, may be because journalists are best at communicating with people from their own social background. And a mass protest in the capital is more visible than a strike in the provinces. Due to this, the participation of proletarians was largely underestimated although many of them took part and fought the cops on the front lines. But these movements were, in most cases, aimed against the government, against corruption and for 'real democracy' and not for the 'cause of the workers'. The movement seemed to have a global character but remained trapped within the framework of their respective nation states. Many of these movements had 'two souls': on one side, poorer proletarians and migrants who had become unemployed, on the other side, precarious academics who regarded a well-paid job as a human right. The middle-strata were particularly affected by interest policies, state debts and austerity measures - some became more radical and acted. At times they managed the leap into politics and into participation in power through elections - like the Podemos in Spain.

Global Working Class

Wildcat no. 98, summer 2015

... on the worldwide explosion of protest in the last few years, the movement of squares, Occupy etc.

[swamp-wanderer]

Article on the development of class struggle in the last few years by Wildcat Germany. Translated from Wildcat no. 98, summer 2015

The concept of class has become popular again. After the most recent global economic crisis, even bourgeois newspapers started posing the question: “Wasn’t Marx right after all?” For the last two years Thomas Piketty’s ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’ has been on the bestseller list – a book which describes in a detailed way how historically, the capitalist process of accumulation resulted in a concentration of wealth into the hands of a tiny minority of capital owners. In western democracies too, significant inequalities have led to an increase in fear of social uprisings. This spectre has haunted the world in recent years – from riots in Athens, London, Baltimore, to the revolts in North Africa, which at times got rid of whole state governments. As usual during these times of unrest, while one faction of the rulers call for repression and weapons, the other raises the ‘social question’, which is supposed to be solved by reforms or redistribution policies.

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