Young Worker Horror Stories

We often hear that our generation has it worse off than our parents. As the capitalist class continues to deepen their attack on the living and working standards of working people as a whole, the jobs available to young people in particular keep getting worse: part-time, non-union, precarious work, internships, or straight up unemployment are often the ‘choices’ we have.

In a recent, small-scale investigation blitz of employers by the Ministry of Labour in Ontario, it was discovered that 3/4 of employers were breaking already substandard labour laws. But what does this look like at the ground level?

Here are some stories from Rebel Youth readers about their work experiences:

Discussion and debate: ultra-leftism and confidence in the people

How much faith should revolutionaries have in the working people and masses, to overthrow the system of capitalism and build a new society? It is an open debate, with Marxists and communists arguing strongly that there are both objective reasons (class struggle) and historic precedent for confidence in the working class majority. The view is not unanimously shared, however. Anarchists, such as Emma Goldman who is pictured left and who the quote below is from, are often much more cynical. Marxists have called-out these kind of approaches as "ultra-left" -- sounding very radical, but in practice promoting a sense of futility and hopelessness and leading to inaction. Writing in his notebook once, Lenin said "Anarchism is a product of despair." What do you think? How is Goldman's concept of freedom similar or different to that of Marxist concepts of freedom? How is it similar or different to the kind of conceptualization of freedom we hear on TV, at school or in political speeches?

Who are the richest 1%?

Rebel Youth

In our last print issue we published a special discussion about the strategy and tactics of youth and student struggle and the Occupy movement by Drew Garvie.

Since that time the Occupy movement has not gone away but its biggest impact remains its slogans of solidarity and class struggle, about the 1% and the 99%. Some of our readers asked for more information about who, exactly, are we talking about when we speak of the 1%?

Helpfully, the labour publication BC Federationist put out a quick summary of a new study from a group of University of British Columbia economics professors.

What the report doesn't conclude is, of course, key in our analysis here at Rebel Youth: that the real 1% are a class because of their relationship to economy or (more precisely, the mode of production) not percentages of income.

As the saying goes -- their are those who work, and those who work them.  As such the power and influence isn’t just from having loads of money (which can also be obscured from census collectors and the tax man) but as a class. Moreover, monopoly capitalists don't make a wage. Instead, they make profits which come from  -- like vampires sucking on workers wages.

Still, the information is useful and striking.

According to the BC Federationist the UBC researchers found, broadly speaking, that income distribution has not been this uneven in Canada since “the dark days of the Great Depression.” “The ratcheting-up of inequality in Canada is real,” the 43-page paper says.

In Canada, about 8 per cent of the country’s total income was concentrated in the hands of 1 per cent of the population back in the late 1970s. In recent years, that almost doubled to 14 per cent, the UBC paper said, which is based in part on details from the 2006 long-form census.  Reasons for the growing chasm vary.

The wage gap between those with a university degree and those with just high school is widening. Younger workers are facing worse earnings prospects than a generation ago. Outsourcing, declining unionization rates and technological change may also be playing a role.

Here are some more of the findings from the study, entitled “Canadian Inequality: Recent Development and Policy Options”:

• The top 1 per cent of earners amount to 275,000 individuals.

• You need an annual income of at least $230,000 to be part of the top 1 per cent; the average income in this group is $450,000, compared to only $36,000 for the whole Canadian population.  

• One could safely call this a brotherhood — 83 per cent of those in the top 1 per cent are men.   

• Just 10 per cent of people in the top 1 per cent work in the finance and insurance industry (despite garnering most of the public’s wrath). Senior managers and CEOs are over-represented in the top group, but still only account for 14 per cent of top earners. The only other large group of top income earners? Physicians, dentists and veterinarians who comprise almost 10 per cent of top earners, despite representing less than 1 per cent of the workforce.

The paper was jointly written by UBC’s Nicole Fortin, David Green, Thomas Lemieux, Kevin Milligan and Craig Riddell for the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network.

The class question and the democratic question

This article is part of an seven-part series of short quotes Rebel Youth is issuing about class struggle, revolution, civil-war, and parliamentary democracy. See also: Lenin on elections; the Communist Party of Canada on a counter-offensive against capitalism; Engels on voting and street fighting; Lenin on Democracy and Class struggle; Communist and Worker's parties on the struggle for socialism; and Lenin on tactics and guerilla war; theCommunist Party of Canada on force, and a peaceful transition to socialism.

The right to divorce, by Lenin
August-October, 1916

[...] This question of divorce is a striking illustration of the fact that one cannot be a democrat and a socialist without immediately demanding full freedom of divorce, for the absence of such freedom is an additional burden on the oppressed sex, woman--although it is not at all difficult to understand that the recognition of the right of women to leave their husbands is not an invitation to all wives to do so! [...] Under capitalism it is usually the case, and not the exception, that the oppressed classes cannot "exercise" their democratic rights. In most cases the right to divorce is not exercised under capitalism, because the oppressed sex is crushed economically; because, no matter how democratic the state may be, the woman remains a "domestic slave" under capitalism, a slave of the bedroom, nursery and kitchen. The right to elect "our" judges, public officials, teachers, jurors, etc., cannot be exercised under capitalism, in the majority of cases, because the workers and peasants are economically downtrodden. The same is true of a democratic republic. Our programme "proclaims" the republic as "the sovereignty of the people" although every Social-Democrat knows perfectly well that under capitalism the most democratic republic leads merely to the bribery of the officials by the bourgeoisie and to an alliance between the Stock Exchange and the government.

Only those who are totally incapable of thinking, or those who are entirely unfamiliar with Marxism, will conclude that, therefore, a republic is of no use, that freedom of divorce is of no use, that democracy is of no use, that self-determination of nations is of no use! Marxists know that democracy does not abolish class oppression, but only makes the class struggle clearer, broader, more open and sharper; and this is what we want. The more complete freedom of divorce is, the clearer will it be to the woman that the source of her "domestic slavery" is not the lack of rights, but capitalism. The more democratic the system of government is, the clearer it will be to the workers that the root of the evil is not the lack of rights, but capitalism. The more complete national equality is (and it is not complete without freedom of secession), the clearer will it be to the workers of the oppressed nation that it is not a question of lack of rights, but of capitalism. And so on. [...]

[T]he right to divorce, like all democratic rights under capitalism without exception, is difficult to exercise, is conventional, restricted, formal and narrow. Nevertheless, no respectable Social-Democrat would consider any one who repudiated this right a democrat, let alone a socialist. This is the whole point. "Democracy" is nothing but the proclaiming and exercising of "rights" that are very little and very conventionally exercised under capitalism. But unless these rights are proclaimed, unless a struggle for immediate rights is waged, unless the masses are educated in the spirit of such a struggle, socialism is impossible.

Discussion questions

1. What are Lenin's main point or points in this short quote? What do you think of the claim that just because we call for the right of something, does not mean we necessarily advocate for it?

2. In the past the Young Communist League has divided its educational work into two parts: the class question and the democratic question. What would be examples of "class questions"? what about "democratic questions"? How are they related and/or separate? Could they be opposites? Could they be connected?

3. Lenin claims that without a struggle for immediate rights and democracy being waged, socialism is impossible. Why do you think he makes this claim? What do you think? Is the argument correct or mistaken? How?


Reading more

You can find the original full statement by Lenin From A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism.

The topic of capitalist democracy is also discussed by Lenin in Chapter 7, "Should we participate in bourgeoisie parliaments?", of his book Left-wing Communism an Infantile disorder.

The connection between democracy and economic struggle, which can be read as a direct comparison with the above article on divorce is found in another short work by Lenin, "Reply to P. Kievsky," especially the section from paragraph 9 "Imperialism is highly developed..." to the end of paragraph 14 "...surrender to opportunism."

The YCL-LJC Canada, "Youth and the Trans-Canada fightback," in the 24th Central Convention Documents of the YCL uses this perspective and connects it with the struggle for reform and revolution. Another Rebel Youth article similar to this theme is Building broad and powerful youth struggles, which we ran back in 2011.

Another good read is State and Revolution by Lenin, particularly Chapter 1 and Chapter 4, section 5.