aristocracy of labor
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
While Mikhail Bakunin is credited with coining this term,[1][2] it is in fact found in Sam Dolgoff's loose translation [1971] of a fragment [c. 1872], which Bakunin wrote in French and contains no word translatable literally as aristocracy of labo(u)r.[3] In an unsent letter to the journal La Liberté in Brussels [5 October 1972], Bakunin used the wording: “a new aristocracy, that of the urban and industrial workers”.[4][5]
For further etymology, see labo(u)r aristocracy.
Noun
aristocracy of labor (plural aristocracies of labor)
- Alternative form of labour aristocracy.
- April 1901, Karl Kautsky, “Trades Unions and Socialism”, in Eugene Dietzgen, transl., International Socialist Review[3], volume 1, number 10, page 595:
- The more such an aristocracy of labor leaves the unskilled, unprotected, unorganized parts of the proletariat to shift economically for themselves, the more these come to be the breeding centers of scabs who stab organized labor in the back on every occasion and thus paralyze every decided action.
- March 1925, Emma Goldman, “Samuel Gompers”, in Road to Freedom[4], volume 1:
- He was content to create an aristocracy of labor, a trade union trust, as it were, indifferent to the needs of the rest of the workers outside of the organization.
- 1970 April 7, Martin Nicolaus, “The Theory of the Labor Aristocracy”, in Monthly Review[5], volume 21, number 11, page 97 of 91-101:
- Despite all the appearances of class struggle, such an aristocracy of labor enjoys, even in times of war, privileged access to the means of political communication and organization.
References
- ^ George Souvlis (2018) “The Popular Front and Marxism in Eric Hobsbawm’s Historical Works”, in Práticas da História: Journal on Theory, Historiography and Uses of the Past[1], number 7, page 114 of 105-132: “[…] the labour aristocracy. This term was coined by Bakunin […]”
- ^ Marx Memorial Library (23 January 2023) “What is a 'labour aristocracy' — did one exist in the past and does it exist today?”, in Morning Star[2]: “The Russian anarchist (and anti-Marxist) Mikhail Bakunin first used the term “aristocracy of labour” in the 1870s […]”
- ^ Mikhail Bakunin (1910) [c. 1872] “Fragment formant une suite de L'Empire Knouto-Germanique”, in Œuvres (in French), volume IV, page 413: “[…] la couche supérieure, la plus civilisée et la plus aisée du monde ouvrier, […]”; loose English translation from Sam Dolgoff, transl. (1971), “On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx”, in Bakunin on Anarchy, page 294: “[…] the upper layer, the aristocracy of labor, those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers.”
- ^ Mikhail Bakunin (1910) [5 October 1872] “Lettre au journal la Liberté, de Bruxelles.”, in Œuvres, volume IV, page 374:
- Ni plus ni moins qu’une aristocratie nouvelle, celle des ouvriers des fabriques et des villes, à l’exclusion des millions qui constituent le prolétariat des campagnes et qui, dans les prévisions de Messieurs les démocrates socialistes de l’Allemagne, deviendront proprement les sujets dans leur grand État soi-disant populaire.
- ^ Steven Cox, transl. (1973), “A Letter to the Editorial Board of La Liberté”, in Mikhail Bakunin: Selected Writings, pages 253-254: “Nothing more or less than a new aristocracy, that of the urban and industrial workers, to the exclusion of the millions who make up the rural proletariat and who, in the previsions of the German social democrats, will in effect become subjects of this great so-called popular State.” Compare also Sam Dolgoff, transl. (1971), “Letter to La Liberté”, in Bakunin on Anarchy, page 280: “It is no more nor less than the aristocratic rule of the factory workers and of the cities over the millions who constitute the rural proletariat, who, in the anticipations of the German Social Democrats, will in effect become the subjects of their so-called People's State.”