Book Review/Seth Sandronsky

Making a Better World

Labor makes the world under capital’s rule, meaning people last and profits first. Yet this social order can be hard to see. Michael D. Yates sheds light and thought for action in Can The Working Class Change The World? (Monthly Review Press, 2018).

Spoiler alert: capitalists will not be making a better world. As we are seeing daily, for instance, fossil fuel interests are the enemy of humanity, as youth leaders are showing.

In six chapters, Yates delivers a primer on radical economics. It is no mean feat, but he is up to it.

In Chapter One, “The Working Class,” Yates defines it, qualitatively and quantitatively. He refines the numbers that mainstream economists use to fog the oppressive nature of the system.

Yates sketches an “analytical scaffolding” of global labor, from the exploited (wages) and expropriated (theft). Yates explains how wage and unwaged labor are integral to the system, similar to the era of slave and “free” workers.

Chapter Two looks at Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism. What is capitalism? It is the accumulation of capital, wealth for a minority and alienated toil for many. Class struggle is a bid to overcome this social division.

Yates updates the Old Man’s theory for the 21st century of rampant nationalism, racism and sexism at home and abroad. Each of these isms undergird capitalism, and its curses of colonialism and imperialism.

Capitalists rely upon the state to empower bosses, discipline workers and force peasants off their land into urban areas to seek wage work. The process unfolded in Marx’s time, and has been underway in Mexico since the NAFTA took effect in 1994, forcing migrant job seekers to head north.

Radical change requires the working class to confront and transcend such social disruptiveness, a theme in Yates’ book. On one hand, the global peasant majority is facing an armed capitalist onslaught. On the other, workers in capitalist-imperialist nations such as the US must make common cause with peasants facing forced removal by corporations that seek to steal natural resources and leave behind toxic pollution. Labor emancipation ends where eco-destruction begins.

Chapter Three dives into why Marx and Engels thought that the working class were the agents of revolutionary social change. They revolted against managerial control over the labor process that became more and more mechanized. Yates’ focus on demonstrates his historical-materialist approach.

The dynamism of workplace control under capitalism makes it a difficult nut to crack for the working class. Further, the capitalist-state has at its disposal nationalism and militarism, which serves to weaken global solidarity between working people, already weakened via racism and sexism.

Yates highlights the role of reproductive female labor, rearing children and caring for elders, in the global economy. Patriarchy is not a posture problem. Rather, female labor’s second-class status is a baked-in feature of a system that exists to grow the pie slices of the ruling class. Sexism shares similarities with racism in undergirding the power of capitalism to grow through alienating and dividing people.

In Chapter Four, Yates explores how workers have changed the world. Two main vehicles have been and are labor unions and political parties. His emphasis on labor education as liberating is spot-on. Meanwhile, labor “leaders” that earn six-figure salaries and funnel members’ capacities and dollars into electing corporate Democrats are part of the problem.

Chapter Five, The Power of Capital Is Still Intact, unpacks how the growth of capitalism weakens the class power of peasants and workers. Think about how the collapse of the socialist bloc paved the path for neoliberalism, a political project to help capital grow. Grow it did, taking down social democracy, while weakening labor and working-class politics. The diversity of the political class (black and brown faces in high places) is no guarantee for improved labor and life chances of peasants and workers.

In the sixth and last chapter, Yates lays out his solutions to help the working class forge a livable future. An informed movement politics is the name of this game, demanding bold departures from what the rulers offer. Worker control over the labor process, workplace democracy, is high on the list, as it should be.

When Yates is not writing books, he is the editorial director of Monthly Review Press. He also edits Monthly Review, an independent socialist publication since 1949.

Seth Sandronsky lives and works in Sacramento. He is a journalist and member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. Email sethsandronsky@gmail.com

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2019

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