The Remaking of the American Working Class - Loren Goldner

Loren Goldner is an American Marxist who has written some excellent material over the last forty years. This long detailed article, available on his website, was first written in 1980/81 and then revised in 1999. Despite the length of time since it was written, it is still a valuable piece which sets out some of the key events and changes in the American, and global, economy and its effect on the working class. Whilst quite technical in places, The Remaking of the American working class is worth making an effort to read, as it dwarves most of what passes for a Marxist critique on the rest of the left. On Goldner's website are a number of interesting replies to, and critiques of, the article.

The Remaking of the American Working Class: The Restructuring of Global Capital and the Recomposition of Class Terrain.
by Loren Goldner

The Restructuring of Global Capital and the Recomposition of Class Terrain

Preface to the 1999 Edition
The following text was written more than 18 years ago, and has circulated in manuscript form, in English and in French, since then. I am planning a complete rewrite and update, and in the meantime, I am posting it on the web to solicit comments which might help me in doing so. While much has happened since 1981, the current manuscript strikes me as 80% up to date. One polemical edge of the text, the critique of the "monopoly capital" school and of the shop-floor militants influenced by it, will mainly evoke a smile today. Even in 1981, it had a vaguely "owl of Minerva" quality, dissecting a corpse that was quickly turning cold. Its immediate context was the coming to power of Reagan and Thatcher in 1979-1980, and one major objective was to write the obituary for the "left wing of devalorization", Keynesian welfare-statism on a world scale, as well as what might be called the "far left of devalorization", the 1960's and 1970's currents which persisted in setting themselves up as the left (but mainly loyal) opposition to the official left, its political parties and trade unions. With Clinton, Blair, Jospin, Schroeder and D'Alema all in power to further the agenda established by Reagan and Thatcher, the post-1981 evolution of the "left wing of devalorization" (with assists from Mitterand, Gonzalez, and Papandreou) is one "prediction" of the text which was right on the mark.