Live Working or Die Trying - Literature review Example

Paul Mason’s book, Live Working or Die Trying, is a divergence from the traditional literature written on the labor movement, which tends to focus onimportant leaders, deciding on important strategies, which precipitates important events. Mason purposely strays away from retelling the history of the labor movement by arguing that importance lies beyond the recognized figures. His story is the telling of the movement from the point of view of the participants, over the course of the last two hundred years. However, Mason’s book is difficult to comprehend and categorize due to the narrative and journalistic flare he employs in his writing; therefore, before a discussion of the text can begin, it is critical to briefly discuss where to situate Mason’s book in historical inquiry. Although this historiography may seem unrelated to a discussion on strategic directions and planning, it must be argued that utilizing a type of history that incorporates the voices, objectives, and actions of the average worker of labor movements in the past will prove as invaluable lessons to future generations of average workers, regardless of their national context. Stalin, Roosevelt, Luxemburg and Bernstein may receive the credit for the labor movements of the last two centuries; but the reality is that the Dunne Brothers, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Louise Michel were the instigators of socio-economic change who worked tirelessly, at the grass-roots level, to maintain the movement through initiatives, support-building, and strategic planning. To understand their pivotal role in the story of the working class, Paul Mason simply could not rely on conventional methods of writing history. The labor movement has been told through the lens of intellectual and political history; however, the rhetoric of the important White man’s history silences the multiple actors involved in the drama. Therefore, Mason turns to social history in order to tell the story through their eyes, both the named actors in his chapters, as well as the scores of nameless figures who contributed, defined, redefined, and incorporated the movement into their everyday lives. Social history succeeds where intellectual history fails; social history’s principle promise and strength [resides] in its expressed desire to examine and reveal the interplay among economics, politics, and culture, a desire reflected in a methodology and a style of historical investigation characterized by a resolute eclecticism, a refusal to be hedged by artificial boundaries, and a drive to contextualize what those working on, say, purely economic, intellectual, or political history [tends] to isolate (Smith 2003, n.p.). As a result of this eclectic approach, social history transcends disciplinary boundaries; by looking at the real, rather than the abstract, at the ordinary, rather than the extraordinary, it provides insight into issues of class, mentalities, culture, identity, nationalism, conflict, and social change, to name a few. Because of its propensity towards narration and being a field of inquiry that acts as a “catch-all category for those subjects that other kinds of history left out,” it is the most suitable tool of analysis to assist Mason in achieving his objective – to use the strategic successes and failures of past generations of working class participants of the labor movement to create a pure, unadulterated manifesto for the future labor movement destined to evolve from the current conditions and realities of the new global workforce (Kocha 2003, n.d.; Smith 2003, n.d.). Mason clearly states that the purpose of the book is to address the growing concerns of the current workforce which, as a result of globalization, is subjected to the unruly forces of global capitalism that have served to undermine the advancements of the pre-WW2 labor movement. The consequences of globalization are simple; mass migration, outsourcing, anti-union laws, and anti-price regulation laws have resulted in effectively silencing workers against the gross abuses of their rights by corporate interest (Mason 2010, p. xiii). Unlike the labor unions of the 19th and 20th centuries, the global workforce does not share a common nationalistic bond that has been used in the past to encourage workers to unite, in order to protect their (for example, American) brothers and sisters. In addition, this global workforce is now subjected to even greater challenges to their ability to create a cohesive movement, which includes intensified racial and ethnic issues, which are instigated and exaggerated by the entrenchment of competition for jobs in the work force (Mason 2010, p. xiv). For example, companies are asking why they should employ a skilled American worker at $15 per hour, when they can hire a skilled immigrant at $10 per hour or a worker in India for $2 per hour. In this regard, the global economy is rather ingenious in that it is causing workers to blame each other as the source of this competition while it remains on the sidelines of the fight, not taking responsibility for its pivotal role in creating the conflict. These conflicts are coupled with the workers’ ignorance as to the legacies of the past labor movements. Globalization has resulted in cutting these workers off from the past lessons, plans of action, initiatives, strengths, weaknesses, and strategies that had been previously employed by the working class to redefine their position within the workforce. However, Mason assertively argues that it is simply not their fault for not knowing the past. This collective amnesia of the current workforce can be attributed to three central events: first, the collapse of Communism has created a vastly larger workforce composed of the East and the West; second, the Industrial Revolution and the further standardization of the workplace in the post-WW2 era has created jobs that can be completed by anyone, in any place, at any cost; and third, the limitless option of labor has created a workforce divide between low-skilled workers from the East and South, and high-skilled workers from the West (and Japan) (Mason 2003, p. xiv). However, Mason argues that these realities are not resulting in the death of a labor movement, but in the reconceptualization of a movement along transnational lines. The labor movement of the post-WW2 era may have lost its vibrancy, its brashness, and its no-guts-no-glory attitude, which can be attributed to the loss of syndicalism after the leaders exchanged their symbolic hats as protestors for those of Communists and Members of Parliament. However, Mason’s chapters, which parallel movements of the past with movements of the present, clearly articulate that the working class will not remain apathetic any longer. Live Working or Die Trying is a call to arms that requires the reemergence of counter-cultures of resistance, of creative circumventing of oppressive and unjust governmental rules and capitalist strategies, and of the centrality of the ordinary worker in the extraordinary process of forming a labor movement. As there lacks a cohesive global labor movement at present, it is impossible to look at the strategies employed today in a broad context; therefore, Mason chooses to focus on specific incidences of labor unrest in the present, while juxtaposing those examples with (what he perceives) parallel examples from the past. Some of the comparisons included are as follows: the first chapter compares the 1819 Peterloo massacre to the Chinese sweatshops of 2003; the third chapter parallels the Paris Commune in 1871 to the Lagos slums in Nigeria; and the eighth chapter outlines the 1943 ghetto uprising in Warsaw Poland to current uprisings in Bolivia. The purpose of these comparisons is simple: Mason argues that, at the center of all labor unrest lays the issue of power, and a labor movement is created when the working class joins together in order to ensure an equitable use and distribution of this power. The objective of today’s labor movement to right the wrong doings of corporate economy by highlighting the gross misuses of power was the same objective of labor movements in the past; therefore, if the central issue of power has not changed, it is fair to assume that the strategies employed by past labor movements can also be employed by present labor movements. Although the book provides nine compelling chapters of past and present movements, due to length constraints, and due to the centrality that Chinese workers will play in the global economy and in labor movements, it seems fitting to evaluate Mason’s parallel between the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, 1819, and the present condition of Chinese sweatshop workers. Opening the chapter with Percy Shelly’s poem from The Masque of Anarchy highlights the most obvious, yet the most ignored strategy in labor movement formation and preservation. “Ye are many – they are few” clearly argues that an enormous amount of power resides in numbers; therefore, the more bodies that a movement can get, the louder the voices of protest become, which creates a stronger boundary between the owners of capital and the workers. In this regard, numbers matter because, as seen in the comparison between the pre-and post-WW2 eras, it is easier to kill a movement with few supporters than with millions of supporters. The strategy of strength in numbers has been used in many arenas and, as basic as it may seem, it works. The issue of numbers is not the concern for today’s labor activists; clearly, with the resource of 2- to 3 billion workers available from the East and the West, having enough supporters is not the problem. The problem resides in the fact that, unlike labor movements of the past, today’s global workforce does not share a common thread of nationalist sentiment that forges these working class ethnic enclaves together. Nothing is benefiting more from this reality than the global economy that creates a hostile environment of competitiveness to ensure this divisiveness remains palpable among the world’s workers. However, the example of the Shenzhen, China, 2008, demonstrates that people are no longer satisfied with the few crumbs tossed their way by upper management and by capitalist endeavors. The story of Lu Chun-Li is in stark contrast to the image of the docile Asian female who, as Mason argues, “is a strike veteran at the age of twenty-six” (2010, p.1). In addition, her place in labor protests is also nothing new; working women of the past played important, if not central roles in strikes, and the photos taken at the 2007 Alco strike, which “show women, arms folded, standing as resolutely as the riot cops opposite,” resonate with strike photos of female garment workers in early 20th century New York (Mason 2010, 3). However, the tactics employed in the strike is not the problem; the problem resides in the lack of organization and application of strategy in strikes to make them affective. Mason notes how this lack of organization and purpose is most evident in “the new pattern of Chinese labor disputes. They are spontaneous…and [have] become routine, non-ideological” (2010, p. 3-4). The problems implicit in organizing labor movements in China are a result of two key factors: first, striking against the government is a relatively new phenomenon that desperately needs the lessons of the labor movement in the West in order to create a more affective and cohesive party; second, strikers are not willing to devote themselves entirely to the cause as Western labor protesters had in the past, because, in comparison to the repressive tactics of the Chinese government employed in past protests (eg., Tiananmen Square), this government response is perceived as ‘not that bad’ (Mason 2010, p. 7-8). The need to correct these errors in the labor movement is obvious, especially in countries like China and India that house the vast majority of the working class; “their work has changed the world fundamentally, yet they have so little power that the rest of the world has hardly heard from them” (Mason 2010, p. 8). Once again, the axis on which the question of labor rests in the issue of power. In the context of labor in China, the keen assertion that “power monopolized is evil” manifests itself most visibly in the intolerable conditions of the sweatshop. It is because of these conditions that a new, globally cohesive labor movement must emerge, which will demand the creation of a collective ideology and the formation and implementation of strategies to ensure the decentering of harmful capitalist power. Yet, for all of his emphasis on how the labor movements of today are falling short of the labor movements of the past, Mason provides little insight into how to effectively rectify the problem. There is no disagreement concerning the obvious problems implicit in creating a transnational labor movement; however, the critical omission in Mason’s book in the proposition of a solution to this problem. In the Introduction, he clearly argues that there is a need for the creation of a labor movement within a global context; yet, in the Afterword, Mason provides the reader with no answers on how this movement will materialize. Although Mason firmly places himself in the role of objective journalist who transmits information, untainted by personal opinion, to the reader, this posturing screams of reckless hope rousing among billions of workers who are unable to make connections with their neighbors, let alone effectively create transnational connections with workers millions of miles away. At the conclusion of his book, Mason argues that his story contains two absolute truths. First, “when history hands full employment, affluence and an element of control to them on a plate – as it did in Europe after 1945 – the red flags are relegated to the museum” (Mason 2010, p. 277). Second, “when there is a globalized economy, a global labor movement begins to take shape” (Mason 2010, p. 278). The first truth is appalling, in that it turns the accusatory finger towards the working class in the post-WW2 era for succumbing to apathy. Throughout the entire book, Mason has argued that the weakness of today’s labor movement is a result of globalization that renders the lessons of the past inaccessible; however, at the end of his book, he chooses to turn the blame on the working classes in the West by seemingly arguing that they should have known of this process called globalization, they should have recognized how it would create and negatively affect the global working class, and they should have continued to fight the good fight even though their lot had been substantially improved in the post-WW2 period. The second truth is frustrating, in that it points to an obvious fact – the emergence of a global labor movement – without providing any suggestions on how to facilitate the spread of this movement or how to shore up more support for the movement. In conclusion, Mason may continue to wear the hat of objective journalist; however, the truth is that he is part of this working class and, as someone who has access to the historical knowledge of previous labor movements, it becomes his responsibility to disseminate that information while providing advice on how to achieve certain aims. A failure to take a stand by refusing to definitively highlight strategies that will succeed in the global workforce provides no to the global workforce. Thus, without this information, Mason’s book becomes yet another top-down account of the history of the labor movement without any real solutions to the future problem. “Whatever the outcome, what I’ve tried to show in this book is that people who built the labor movement were human beings, not socialist automata or anarchist supermen;” Mason may argue whatever he likes; however in the end, the rhetoric of ‘no guts, no glory’ must prevail, and there is little glory in refusing to take a stand (2010, p. xvii). References Kocka, J. (2003). Losses, Gains and Opportunities: Social History Today. Journal of Social History, 37(1), 21+. Retrieved December 17, 2010, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5002024624 Mason, P. (2010). Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class went Global. Chicago, Illinois: Haymarket Books. Print. Smith, M. M. (2003). Making Sense of Social History. Journal of Social History, 37(1), 165+. Retrieved December 17, 2010, from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5002024676 Read More