Labor Aristocracy
The labor aristocracy is the stratum of the working class — historically concentrated in the imperialist metropoles — that receives a share of super-profits extracted from the exploitation of colonial and neo-colonial labor, and whose material privileges bind it to the bourgeois order.
Theory
The concept is associated with Lenin (Imperialism and the Split in Socialism, 1916) and with the Marx-Engels observations on the English working class in the age of British imperial dominance: Engels wrote that the English workers "gaily share the feast" of England's monopoly position. The labor aristocracy forms the social base of opportunism, reformism, and the betrayal of revolutionary socialism by trade-union bureaucracies and social-democratic parties.
In Infrared's usage
Haz Al-Din employs the concept to explain:
- Why the Western left is dominated by relatively privileged strata whose socialism is a form of consumption-identity rather than a revolutionary commitment.
- Why the genuine revolutionary subject in America today is more likely to be found among the deplorable working class — those written off by the professional-managerial left — than among unionized or credentialled strata.
- The connection between imperialism and the corruption of the metropolitan workers' movement, which grounds the ACP's anti-imperialist patriotism.
See also
References
Infrared transcript catalog — search "labor aristocracy".