Socialist Register 2001: Working Classes, Global Realities

Socialist Register 2001 examines the challenges faced by workers and the labor movement under global capitalism in the new century. This collection of twenty timely and original essays lay the groundwork for a much-needed revival of class analysis. A broad range of working-class issues are addressed including knowledge work and the “cybertariat” in the new economy, feminism and unions, migrant labor, peasant struggles, internationalism, and the impact of unstable, casual, and contingent employment. Other essays examine critically important regional experiences in India, Iran, Russia, Brazil, Southern Africa, and East Asia, as well as Europe and North America. Contributors to this volume reveal new and exciting possibilities for change that transcend the limits of old forms of class organization and politics.

Contents

Preface

• Ursula Huws, The Making of a Cybertariat? Virtual Work in a Real World
• Henry Bernstein, “The Peasantry” in Global Capitalism: Who, Where and Why?
• Beverly J. Silver and Giovanni Arrighi, Workers North and South
• Andrew Ross, No-Collar Labor in America’s “New Economy”
• Barbara Harriss-White & Nandini Gooptu, Mapping India’s World of Unorganized Labor
• Patrick Bond, Darlene Miller & Greg Ruiters, The Southern African Working Class: Production, Reproduction and Politics
• Steve Jefferys, Western European Trade Unionism at 2000
• David Mandel, “Why Is There No Revolt?” The Russian Working-Class and Labor Movement
• Haideh Moghissi & Saeed Rahnema, The Working Class and the Islamic State in Iran
• Huw Beynon & José Ramalho, Democracy and the Organization of Class Struggle in Brazil
• Gerard Greenfield, Organizing, Protest and Working-Class Self-Activity: Reflections on East Asia
• Rohini Hensman, Organizing Against the Odds: Women in India’s Informal Sector
• Eric Mann, “A Race Struggle, A Class Struggle, A Women’s Struggle All at Once”: Organizing on the Buses of L.A.
• Justin Paulson, Peasant Struggles and International Solidarity: The Case of Chiapas
• Judith Adler Hellman, Virtual Chiapas: A Reply to Paulson
• Peter Kwong, The Politics of Labor Migration: Chinese Workers in New York
• Brigitte Young, The “Mistress” and the “Maid” in the Globalized Economy
• Rosemary Warskett, Feminism’s Challenge to Unions in the North: Possibilities and Contradictions
• Sam Gindin, Turning Points and Starting Points: Brenner, Left Turbulence and Class Politics
• Leo Panitch, Reflections on Strategy for Labor

Leo Panitch is professor of political science at York University in Toronto. Colin Leys was for many years professor of political science at Queen’s University in Canada.