Trade Union Recognition

[La_Dolce_Vita]

Yes, that sentence was not written well, and I am lazy when I write on here and make it too long-winded. But I do think that your complaints, and some other peoples, are heavily coloured by the fact that there is so much disagreement with what I have to say. It is so much easier to call it garbage or drivel though.

[Freggyragh]

OK, now that you have accepted the need for coherency, why don't you try and put forward a coherent idea?

[La_Dolce_Vita]

OK, now that you have accepted the need for coherency, why don't you try and put forward a coherent idea?

 

You already know my ideas and thoughts on this topic so let's not pretend that my supposedly atrocious writing abilities have stopped you picking them up.

[manxman2]

You boring,boring man.You spoil every thread .

 

Wondering when the One Liner would come in. Do I need to be a bit more 'rock n roll' then?

 

no you just need to come of the dole put your spliff down and get a proper job .. if you are not qualified to do anything you enjoy then work for yourself it is that simple.

[pongo]

I would say that I have a more or less Marxist perspective of history although it is not something I think about very often. I think that many people do without even realizing it. Even people who probably think of themselves as relatively liberal.

 

Actually - I think that a perspective of history which is significantly influenced by Marxism is more or less mainstream now. The very notion of political and economic history is, more or less, derived from Marxism. And that is how we think about history, mostly, these days.

 

^^

 

I just thought I'd throw that into the mix

[Sebrof]

The most obvious difference was that German employees realised that their interests and the interests of their employers were broadly the same. Result, German companies were very profitable, and were able to pay higher wages and invest in new designs and new plant.

 

Another obvious difference would be that West German industry was more or less begun again from scratch after 1945 and that, for many years, the US pumped huge amounts of money into the West German economy. Directly and indirectly.

 

The Germans had help rebuilding their factories after the war. However, I am not aware that car companies were receiving subsidies from America in the 60s and 70s. A new car needs vast investment in research and design, vast investment in tooling, and vast investment thereafter in marketing and dealer support.

 

You may know better, but I don't think any of these things were subsidised after 1960, if indeed they were before that.

 

S

[Sebrof]

It may be a generalisation, but from my understanding of British economic history, the problem with British industry was lack of investment in capital and short-termism, but also the lack of money put into R&D (though I recognise what you say about Issigionis). .......................... But I still have to ask what interests you are talking about you believe are broadly the same. I fully appreciate that when a company is doing very well it can pay higher wages and will do so to maintain the growth already established. But where stagnation has already occurred and this impact on wages there is need to protect oneself. I am interested to know what you think should have been done differently.

 

I think I already answered this point in an earlier thread.

 

A successful company has more money for investment, and more money to pay staff. Investment leads to growth, and growth leads to higher empoloyment and resilience in the face of adversity. As an example, Honda (a successful car-maker) has temporarily closed its UK plant but is continuing to pay its workers 80% of their salaries.

 

It is doing this for two reasons. 1. Because it can (it is successful). 2 Because when demand picks up it will still have a skilled workforce to meet it.

 

Thus the interests of workers and management coincide.

 

Red Robbo ensured that BMC/BL couldn't be successful. Constant strikes, poor workmanship, and excessive pay demands all helped to cripple the company. Now we have no car industry. With a more conciliatory approach, the company would undoubtedly have done better, and who knows, it might still be going today.

 

When its own workforce is against it, no company has a hope.

 

This was a classic example of the greed and stupidity of the working class. Far from being the wonderful people of soviet propaganda, workers can often be lazy and stupid, especially when badly led. And their leaders in this case were not management, but union officials.

 

S

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I would say that I have a more or less Marxist perspective of history although it is not something I think about very often. I think that many people do without even realizing it. Even people who probably think of themselves as relatively liberal.

 

Actually - I think that a perspective of history which is significantly influenced by Marxism is more or less mainstream now. The very notion of political and economic history is, more or less, derived from Marxism. And that is how we think about history, mostly, these days.

 

^^

 

I just thought I'd throw that into the mix

 

In what way?

 

I know a lot of historians now tend to reject Marxist analyses of specific events or issues. It is almost as if it is considered unfashionable or somehow irrelevant. It is something I have come across from my reading of recently published books.

[Chinahand]

I studied a Master's Degree in International Studies not long ago in the US. The facualty taught the global system via Wallerstein's world-systems analysis.

 

It is a neo-marxist theory where modes of production influence the political systems existing in various countries. The influence of modes of production on the political environment of an economy is basically mainstream in academia, that's what International Political Economy is all about!

 

Where Marx is much much less accepted is his absolute insistance that class relations are the dominant political nexis. All Marx could do was say that religious, national, community relations etc were distortions of the true underlying class conflict - I admit I paraphrase, I'll leave it LDV to bore us to death - this part of Marxist analysis is pretty discredited and academics nowadays are far more interested in the interactions, conflicts and cooperation between the various segments of a society and how they interlink both locally and internationally. These interactions are far far more complex than simple class conflict - which LDV seems to also see as the only game in town.

[La_Dolce_Vita]

...this part of Marxist analysis is pretty discredited and academics nowadays are far more interested in the interactions, conflicts and cooperation between the various segments of a society and how they interlink both locally and internationally. These interactions are far far more complex than simple class conflict - which LDV seems to also see as the only game in town.

 

I in fact disagree with a good deal of studies that have been made of issues that were based on a Marxist analyses. I don't, for example, hold to a Marxist (Official Sinn Fein/IRA) interpretation of the conflict and problems in Northern Ireland. But Marxist analyses has not been almost all discredited, however.

 

I do not deny for one minute the various relationships and interactions between parts of society are more complex than something like class analysis but discovering complexities in other relationships does not render class conflict an obsolete idea. But I am sceptical of some claims that many interactions and relationships in society are the result of class and class is all important.

 

A successful company has more money for investment, and more money to pay staff. Investment leads to growth, and growth leads to higher empoloyment and resilience in the face of adversity. As an example, Honda (a successful car-maker) has temporarily closed its UK plant but is continuing to pay its workers 80% of their salaries.

 

But wages do not rise proportionate to a company increasing profits. The company keeps them as low as possible, why would it not?

[pongo]

I in fact disagree with a good deal of studies that have been made of issues that were based on a Marxist analyses. I don't, for example, hold to a Marxist (Official Sinn Fein/IRA) interpretation of the conflict and problems in Northern Ireland

 

I'm not sure how useful it is to look at them as an example - although I've read my history and am aware that the, so called, Official IRA of the 1960s border campaign did ultimately adopt or play lip service to a quasi Marxism - before disbanding into various political and criminal factions after the northern Provisionals took charge.

 

But I'm more or less certain that they reverse engineered their Marxism to make it fit their need for a political shape. My understanding is that it was a sort of lazy 1960s pick and mix beatnik pub/ university Trotskyism.

[Sebrof]

A successful company has more money for investment, and more money to pay staff. Investment leads to growth, and growth leads to higher empoloyment and resilience in the face of adversity. As an example, Honda (a successful car-maker) has temporarily closed its UK plant but is continuing to pay its workers 80% of their salaries.

 

But wages do not rise proportionate to a company increasing profits. The company keeps them as low as possible, why would it not?

 

As companies grow, demand for staff grows. When demand rises, so do prices (wages in the case of workers).

 

S

[La_Dolce_Vita]

I in fact disagree with a good deal of studies that have been made of issues that were based on a Marxist analyses. I don't, for example, hold to a Marxist (Official Sinn Fein/IRA) interpretation of the conflict and problems in Northern Ireland

 

I'm not sure how useful it is to look at them as an example - although I've read my history and am aware that the, so called, Official IRA of the 1960s border campaign did ultimately adopt or play lip service to a quasi Marxism - before disbanding into various political and criminal factions after the northern Provisionals took charge.

 

But I'm more or less certain that they reverse engineered their Marxism to make it fit their need for a political shape. My understanding is that it was a sort of lazy 1960s pick and mix beatnik pub/ university Trotskyism.

 

I don't know much about the 60s, only just after the split of the IRA in the OIRA and PIRA. Yeah, I know the reverse engineering that you talk about certainly happened with the PIRA too. But I remember a Trotskyite friend of mine telling how the problem with Northern Ireland over the past few decades was due to British imperialism. I don't see that to be the case at all. I just seems that communists and a lot of other leftys just try and rely on a Marxist analysis for so much.