Global Capital and Labor Internationalism in Comparative Historical Perspective: A Marxist Analysis |
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| Authors: | Andrew Howard |
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| Institution: | Is currently assistant professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1986. Cutting across a variety of subdisciplines in sociology, including social stratification, the sociology of work, historical sociology, and comparative social movements, his research is broadly concerned with the significance of class, race, and gender inequalities as bases for social solidarity and mobilization. |
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| Abstract: | Labor internationalism has historically developed in response to the increasing globalization of capital, but economic factors in themselves do not provide a sufficient explanation for the relative success of international solidarity in specific geographical and historical contexts. In the past, movements of international solidarity have tended to coalesce where inclusive class-based mobilizations in individual countries have polarized local class conflicts in ways that suggest a convergence of working-class interests on the international plane. As an emergent strategy of economistic labor organizations in various sectors of the capitalist world economy, however, internationalism may in fact promote the politicization of economic trade union struggles and thus catalyze broader levels of class solidarity and unity on the national and local planes. |
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