2001: Working Classes: Global Realities
(Edited by Leo Panitch & Colin Leys, with Greg Albo & David Coates)
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Noam Chomsky - 'I know the Register very well, and have found it extremely stimulating, often invaluable.'

The Socialist Register 2001 looks at class struggles and the lives of workers in the new century. Twenty original and wide-ranging essays lay the grounds for a much-needed revival of class analysis, exploring such themes as the making of a ‘cybertariat’, the spread of unstable, causal, and contingent employment, the changes women have wrought in the working classes, the relationship between workers ‘north’ and ‘south’, the persistence of ‘peasantries’, the growing significance of migrant workers, and new strategies for change which can transcend the limits of old forms of class organization and politics. Regionally-focused essays address the challenges faced by workers and labour movements in India, Iran, Russia, Brazil, Southern Africa and East Asia, as well as Europe and North America.

Read a review of the Socialist Register 2001, by Bill Fletcher (published in 'Against the Current', issue 95)!

Contents (Available Below)

Preface

The Making of a Cybertariat? Virtual Work in a Real World
by Ursula Huws

'The Peasantry' in Global Capitalism: Who, Where and Why?
by Henry Bernstein

Workers North and South
by Beverly J. Silver & Giovanni Arrighi

No-Collar Labour in America's 'New Economy'
by Andrew Ross

Mapping India's World of Unorganized Labour
by Barbara Harriss-White & Nandini Gooptu

The Southern African Working Class: Production, Reproduction and Politics
by Patrick Bond, Darlene Miller & Greg Ruiters

Western European Trade Unionism at 2000
by Steve Jefferys

'Why is there no revolt?' The Russian Working Class and Labour Movement
by David Mandel

The Working Class and the Islamic State in Iran
by Haideh Moghissi & Saeed Rahnema

Democracy and the Organization of Class Struggle in Brazil
by Huw Beynon & Jorge Ramalho

Organizing, Protest and Working Class Self-Activity: Reflections on East Asia
by Gerard Greenfield

Organizing Against the Odds: Women in India's Informal Sector
by Rohini Hensman

'A race struggle, a class struggle, a women's struggle all at once': Organizing on the Buses of L.A.
by Eric Mann

Peasant Struggles and International Solidarity: the Case of Chiapas
by Justin Paulson

Virtual Chiapas: A Reply to Paulson
by Judith Adler Hellman

The Politics of Labour Migration: Chinese Workers in New York
by Peter Kwong

The 'Mistress' and the 'Maid' in the Globalized Economy
by Brigitte Young

Feminism's Challenge to Unions in the North: Possibilities and Contradictions
by Rosemary Warskett

Turning Points and Starting Points: Brenner, Left Turbulence and Class Politics
by Sam Gindin

Reflections on Strategy for Labour
by Leo Panitch

Ongoing debate on Chiapas! In the Socialist Register 2000, Judy Hellman wrote an essay on Chiapas and the role of the internet (Real and Virtual Chiapas: Magic Realism and the Left). Justin Paulson was invited to respond, and his contribution, as well as Judy's response to his response have been published in the Socialist Register 2001. In the meantime Harry Cleaver (who is webmaster of the Chiapas95 homepage) has also intervened in this most interesting debate. Unfortunately it was too late to include this in the Socialist Register 2001.