Labor and its imaginary friends

@nastywoman,
I don’t think there are permanent ‘producing countries’ anymore. It’s global finance, not any national government, who decides where the next factory is going to be built. National governments can wish to be chosen, they can compete (by lowering the corporate tax, the cost of labor and so on), but they don’t decide. Well, okay, apart from the ‘defense’, war industry.

Consequently, if a country happens to be ‘producing country’ at the moment, and it has a successful Labor (traditional sense) Party, meaning that the cost of labor is rising, then there’s a good a chance it will soon stop being ‘producing country’. But we already discussed this, didn’t we?

Much of which – altered for country specifics – could be used to explain the British Labour Party’s problems.

” They are implicitly cast as male breadwinners, typically of middle age and older, and in regional areas rather than the much-denounced ‘inner city’. They are either self-employed or work in the private sector. The word ‘aspirational’ is code for high incomes and a focus on less progressive taxes. In every respect, these characteristics are those associated with the conservative parties. Perhaps some of these voters retain a sentimental attachment to Labor, but making them the focus of electoral strategy is a fools errand.”

Yes, the old Labour Party base in the industrial towns.

” The archetypal Labor voter, if a concrete example is needed, would be a Gen Z Enrolled Nurse working in a major city hospital.”

(Just to translate a bit, an enrolled nurse is, in Oz, akin to a Licenced nurse in the US, to a – possibly – health care assistant in the UK, not to a registered nurse in either which is the level above)

That newer base, or perhaps this is better:

“By contrast, workers in professional occupations with relatively low pay and status support the left.”

Yes, very much so.

British Labour’s problem is that the old industrial base has been rather taken for granted these recent decades while much policy has been aimed at attracting those newer. Which is fair enough, it’s just that the divergence seems to have gone a bit too far between the perceived self interest of the different voting groups. Thus the increasing loss of those old northern and industrial seats.

An interesting side effect of “Big Money’s” punishment of labor is the absence of industry that can be converted to produce whatever the armed forces need in the event the politicians fk up the diplomacy. “Fk it, we’ll just nuke ’em.” is unlikely to be the correct tactic either. This may have a moderating effect on sensible politicians, but we can’t count on a fox-poisoned electorate voting for sensible people. This is maybe a bit of a digression from the essay, but there may be some entertainment in watching conservatives attempt to simultaneously embrace nationalism and satisfy the Mammonites.

You fooled me here:

“…a young woman, in a stereotypically female public sector occupation, requiring post-school education, but with an income well below the average for full-time workers.” There’s one obvious answer to this riddle: schoolteacher. (Even more so in the US, of course, as health care is not generally thought of as the public sector.)

Why is it “labour markets” but “Labor Party”? (I’m referring to the spelling.)

All of this can be generalised across many countries, e.g. North America, Europe. I believe we are seeing a deep political re-alignment, as has happened before every several decades – there was a time, after all, before the labour movement.

For many decades it was a political block centered on petty bourgeoisie, land-owning farmers, and religious identities against another block centered on unionised blue-collar factory, farming, and mining workers, both held together mostly by their self-perceived economic interests. The new setup appears to be a block centered on reasonably well-off retirees, petty bourgeoisie, and rural populations against an alliance of young to middle-aged, educated but underpaid and casualised service, public service, and education/science workers, various minorities, and urban populations, both defined mostly around attitudes towards immigration, mobility, and tolerance.

The right seems to find it easier to adapt than the left. In some countries the major party of the right has quickly been captured by proponents of the new alignment (USA, UK), in others the major party has been replaced, but regardless of the details they seem to be ahead of the game. The main example that comes to my mind where the left has adapted relatively quickly are the USA – of course there is a plethora of media voices saying “the Democracts have to win aging, rural, white blue collar workers back by throwing all of their minority base under the bus”, but in actual practice Democratic politicians mostly seem to have understood the new situation.

In many other countries the major parties of the left still seem to struggle to find a strategy. British Labour self-sabotages because two wings are at war, one trying to reclaim their base of the 1970s from the conservatives, the other trying to mobilise the urban youth. Germany’s SPD never recovered from Schroder’s labour market reforms and is now fading out of existence as the Greens are becoming the new main party of the left. (And there are, of course, still countries where the re-alignment hasn’t progressed to the same degree.)

In all fairness, however, in any first-past-the-post style system (and I am including here arrangements like the US senate), the left faces a perennial disadvantage under this re-alignment because rural/nativist versus urban/minority comes auto-gerrymandered, with the supporters of the left concentrated in the cities. There is also, of course, a great incentive for right-wing media to define rural business owners and retirees as ‘working class’ and a teaching assistant with immigrant background on a six month contract as ‘elite’, which will have a psychological impact. I therefore understand how difficult it is for many centre-left strategists to accept that the old blue collar base is not a viable option anymore. But there is really no excuse for not facing realities at least in countries with sensible electoral systems.

Here in Australia, idiosyncratic issues also play a role. From what I understand, Labour seems to assume that they cannot win an election if they lose a certain small number of mining districts in Queensland. But to appeal to those voters they have to frustrate the much larger part of their support base who think there should have been decisive action on climate twenty years ago. Rock, hard place. Also, Murdoch media, although that problem is certainly not idiosyncratic.

According to [Ross] McMullin [who wrote an official history of the Labor Party], “the way the spelling of ‘Labor Party’ was consolidated had more to do with the chap who ended up being in charge of printing the federal conference report than any other reason”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Labor_Party#Name_and_spelling

and why did autocorrect change how ‘different interesting’ it has become – in comparisons with similar debates in other countries…
into:
‘how ‘difficult interesting’ it has become – in comparisons with similar debates in other countries…’

BE-cause Paul Krugman wrote in 1999
‘WHY GERMANY KANT KOMPETE’
and
‘Well, here’s my theory: The real divide between currently successful economies, like the U.S., and currently troubled ones, like Germany, is not political but philosophical; it’s not Karl Marx vs. Adam Smith, it’s Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative vs. William James’ pragmatism. What the Germans really want is a clear set of principles: rules that specify the nature of truth, the basis of morality, when shops will be open, and what a Deutsche mark is worth. Americans, by contrast, are philosophically and personally sloppy: They go with whatever seems more or less to work. If people want to go shopping at 11 P.M., that’s okay; if a dollar is sometimes worth 80 yen, sometimes 150, that’s also okay.

Now, the American way doesn’t always work better. Even today, Detroit can’t or won’t make luxury cars to German standards; Amtrak can’t or won’t provide the precision scheduling that Germans take for granted. America remains remarkably bad at exporting; the sheer quality of some German products, the virtuosity of German engineering, have allowed the country to remain a powerful exporter despite having the world’s highest labor costs. And Germany did a better job of resisting the inflationary pressures of the ’70s and ’80s than we did.

But the world has changed in a way that seems to favor flexibility over discipline. With technology and markets in flux, not everything worth doing is worth doing well…’

AND that might be… the… problem?

As in the reality of the 21 Century – EVERYTHING worth doing – is worth doing well…’

nastywoman, the proportion of German workers in manufacturing peaked in the 1960s (somewhere around 50%). It is now less than 20% of German workers (see here. For all its prowess, German manufacturing is creating fewer and fewer jobs. And that is precisely because its productivity has soared relative to other sectors of the German economy (ie it needs fewer workers to produce its output). So German politics are subject to the same effects that John points to.

Shedding manufacturing jobs is what rich economies do – even China is past its manufacturing employment peak.

I am confident that many countries that have “lost their manufacturing sector” are actually producing much more stuff than they did a few decades ago. The work is just much more automated, as in mining and, to the degree possible, farming, for that matter.

nastywoman @ 1, 5, etc.

With all due respect, I think you may be reading too much Friedrich Merz, and not enough Sascha Lobo. I remember in the 80s when the Japanese lectured Americans about their slipshod industrial practices. Flash forward, and we have Sony and Apple to compare. Who would you pick to be the arbiter of invidious comparison in the present context? The truth is that the intersection of industrial policy and cultural norms is a very tricky landscape to negotiate for political storytellers. They want to speak of intention, hoping that the audience won’t notice the extent to which luck and corruption are equal partners in the plot.

The story you’re telling about Germany is a myth —- a myth based at least in part on elements of the truth, to be sure, but a myth nevertheless. You want to talk about superior German engineering, Mitbestimmung, and high industrial wages. That’s fine, but surely you can understand why Herr Lobo might want to mention the politics of Germany’s abysmal telecommunications infrastructure, crumbling schools, shortage of care workers, and worship of the schwarze Null, or why Yanis Varoufakis is still hung up on the devastating effect German neo-mercantilism had on the people of Greece.

Everyone and their dog these days seems to have a story to tell about the correct approach to things like industrial policy, political sovereignty, global supply chains, and the possibility that our successes, rather than our failures, will turn out to be the burden that ultimately overwhelms the earth. Justice and mercy seem to be mentioned in most of these stories somewhere, but not very prominently, and always with the caveat that it isn’t realistic to concern ourselves with the why of the things before we settle on the how. Unless and until that changes, I’m pretty sure that none of this is going to end well.

@20
‘The story you’re telling about Germany is a myth —- a myth based at least in part on elements of the truth, to be sure, but a myth nevertheless’.

But it isn’t a ‘myth’ that all the expensive stuff my American family owns is ‘Made in Germany’ -(and Italy and a bit in France) – and all of the cheap stuff they own is ‘Made in China’ and if you understood me wrong – I actually just would like it – if they would own more stuff ‘Made in the US’ – as if they would own more stuff US Made – it would mean that blue collared US workers -(I have a certain and very personal attachment to) – would
be… may I say ‘happier’? – and thusly wouldn’t have to to vote for Right-Wing Racist Idiots anymore – who lie to them.

And about all these ‘Friedrich Merz’ and ‘Sascha Lobo’ and ‘the politics of Germany’s abysmal telecommunications infrastructure, crumbling schools, shortage of care workers, and worship of the schwarze Null, or why Yanis Varoufakis is still hung up on the devastating effect German neo-mercantilism had on the people of Greece’ – that’s… never about the very old-fashioned Greek -(or Italian? – or German?) idea – to just consume what you can produce yourself –
Or just produce what you consume yourself –
as it seems to prevent a country like German from becoming ‘THE predominant producer for High Quality Stuff in the World.
(and China ‘THE Producer for the cheap stuff)
and I think – we ALL don’t want that –

Right?

AND it’s a bit…
weird?
(If I might say?) –
As each time this… this subject comes up –
I post and post –
(okay – perhaps in other words?) –
that y’all NEED to honour y’alls (blue collar wage) workers!! –
(Like they still do in a country like Germany)
OR in any ‘Predominant Producing Country in the World – in order NOT to lose the connection between ‘Labor Parties’ and ‘the workers’ –
and then… somebody like Petrovna jokes:

‘What is labeled ‘right’ is good for domestic manufacturing, and what is labeled ‘left’ is bad for it’?

With all due respect …

Harsh!

@18 “The work is just much more automated, as in mining and, to the degree possible, farming, for that matter.”

That’s the mantra, but I’m skeptical. The work may be more automated, but then a lot more is being produced. And things – TVs, phones, laptops, cars and their components – need to be assembled. You can find a video of fully automated plant, but that’s not really how things are done.

As for farming, I suspect that quite a bit of it (picking strawberries, for example) is done by invisible people, completely off the books. And some of that in manufacturing as well. We don’t really know what’s happening.

AND soooo –
we
ALL!! –
now hopefully have come to the conclusion
that –
‘Labor and its imaginary friends’
and
that’s ‘there’s lots of concern in the Australian Labor part about the perceived loss of its traditional working class base’ – is some kind of ‘imaginary problem’?
Just imagine (Aussie) ‘Labor’ coming up with some programs and policies which give Aussie blue collar wage workers the same power blue collar wage workers in Germany have -(from absolute secure jobs with ‘Mitbestimmung’ and at least six to seven weeks of vacations each year AND a very generous support for child care)

Now wouldn’t that turn even Aussie’s blue collar wage workers in ALL NEW FRIENDS –
with Labor?

nastywoman @ 20

If it’s fair to ask why there are no American (or Chinese) Mercedes, isn’t it also fair to ask why there are no German iPhones? This isn’t a nationalist argument. Apple’s design and engineering teams have never been composed exclusively of the native born and bred, neither are the iPhones assembled in Chinese factories exactly what you’d call cheap stuff.

This isn’t a comparative advantage argument either. In the short term, only mainland China and Taiwan can manage the precision manufacture of high-quality electronics at scale, but it seems very unlikely that this will be the case forever. The component parts are, in fact, sourced from all over the world, and integrated by very complex machinery, much of which is made in Germany or elsewhere in Europe. (Side note: we’re told that the acres of curved glass in Apple Park’s space ship were made by a specialty firm in Germany, the only company on earth capable of manufacturing it,)

I think that even Paul Krugman, who won his Nobel for being the first to call our attention to the fact how technological advances are made is dependent to a surprising degree on where they are made, would concede that the real goal of global economic integration is to make the expertise that originates in Wolfsburg or Cupertino or Shenzhen completely portable. Barring political rivalries that become wars, or catastrophic climate change arriving much sooner than we expect, that seems to me to be a very likely outcome, with consequences for labor politics that no one yet has fully calculated.

MFB 29: “There really aren’t enough nurses to elect a government.”
Neither are there enough mine workers or … (substitute your preferred group of proletarians). Yet in certain countries (certainly in the US), mine workers are politically powerful and nurses are not. That is a question I would like addressed by the distinguished leftist thinkers in attendance…

Note, Google tells me there are 3.8 million nurses, 3.7 million teachers, 3.5 million truck drivers, 2.6 million farmers, 2.4 million farm workers, and 0.6 million mine workers in the US.

There are 11.9 manufacturing workers, 4.6 million retail sales workers, about 12 million restaurant workers.

AFL CIO offers the following statistics about workers in the “management, professional, and related occupations” group (as defined by the BLS, https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/the-professional-and-technical-workforce-by-the-numbers):
o Management occupations (18,263,000);
o Business and financial operations occupations (7,587,000);
o Computer and mathematical occupations (5,126,000);
o Architecture and engineering occupations (3,263,000);
o Life, physical, and social science occupations (1,529,000);
o Community and social service occupations (2,680,000);
o Legal occupations (1,891,000);
o Education, training, and library occupations (9,313,000);
o Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (3,362,000); and
o Healthcare practitioner and technical occupations (9,420,000).

Not directly related, but I think it’s important to remember that in the US context, almost all debate about the working class, traditional or not, implicitly excludes non-whites. A nice recent example:

“But what I want to note here is that Packer’s typology pretty much completely disappears the entire American non-white working class: the 75 million or so people who make the wheels go round in this country, and whose opinions are never sampled by journalists who have traveled to a diner in this still highly segregated part of (insert any major American city)”

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/06/disappearing-the-non-white-working-class

@31
‘So, that’s your communist?’

No –
that’s what American Right-Wingers believe is ‘a communist’ -(or socialist)
and you finally need to realise – if ‘according to en.wikipedia, “Kretschmann belongs to the more Realpolitik-oriented, centrist wing of the Green Party, and has been characterised as holding economically liberal, pro-business views’ – such so called ‘economically liberal, pro-business views’ IN Germany are ALWAYS based on such a HUUUGE ‘social net’ –
that Right Wing Americans -(like you?)
like to call it: ‘communism’.
(or ‘socialism’)

AND about ‘the cheap stuff’ –

How true –
finding all ‘the cheap stuff’ in an American -(or even German) – Houshold to be ‘Made in China’ is already a thing of the past – as the Chinese are getting more and more into the production of ‘High Quality Stuff’ too – as they understood far faster than some delusional US economists – that in manufacturing of High Quality -(and ‘luxury’) stuff is the most amount of dough.
AND -(attention joke!) –
that thusly ‘the blue collar wage workers’ – who produce such stuff –
are the real HEROES of their economy! –
AND that they have to be honoured even more than the workers im ehemaligen Deutschen Bauern und Arbeiterstaat DDR!

@34
‘Yet in certain countries (certainly in the US), mine workers are politically powerful and nurses are not. That is a question I would like addressed by the distinguished leftist thinkers in attendance…’

BE-cause –
as I wrote –
It all depends what ‘working heroes’ you like to worship –
and as the list you presented – is totally outdated –
(since the pandemic)
and most Americans are now ‘Bakers’ – besides always holding much more than just one job – there is NO more anybody called ‘Proletariat’ in America.

EVERYBODY –
in his or her job is a:
‘Independent Contractor’ –
(even a lot of the ‘nurses’)

Yesterday I chanced to hear part of a report on the radio about the decline of unions, and discussing the level of unionisation in Australia, who were mentioned as a group still with a high (and, I think even maybe, a rising) level of unionisation and a strong union, effective in gaining results desired by its members? Why, nurses!

„that in manufacturing of High Quality -(and ‘luxury’) stuff is the most amount of dough.“

Hmmm are you sure? Ever heard of Google, Facebook and Amazon?

Polls in the US show strong support for unions: https://www.vox.com/2021/6/16/22535274/poll-pro-act-unionization-majority-bipartisan

Why don’t more workers join? I know, the deck is stacked heavily against unions in the US. Still, why does public support seem to be so inconsequential?

Aside, any comments regarding the “industrial policy” bill passed by the US Senate? “It’s strange that such a significant measure can pass the divided Senate and yet elicit very little public attention…”, writes Robert farley at https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/06/new-industrial-policy