LAUSR

The concept of the labour aristocracy is one of the most hotly debated in Marxism. This article explores the history of the idea. The labour aristocracy, in general, refers to a privileged group of workers, with the associated view that this group will be prone to conservatism because of said privilege and thus unlikely to support movements towards socialism. In general, a tension can be observed in Marxismwhere early Marxists began to produce theory and analysis at a time when the labour aristocracy played a decisive (and non-revolutionary) role in the labour movement. At the same time, we can observe certain inertia in the analysis, the result of early prognoses based on the presumption of a globally homogenous working class whose political interests would converge over time. It is important to note, however, that the labour aristocracy as a concept is not a rigidly formulated one and is still subject to significant debate. It is very much a living concept, and this article also demonstrates that the experiences of the twentieth century led various Marxist writers to creatively use and develop the idea of the labour aristocracy to help them understand and shape political trends. In explaining the opportunism of the English labour movement, Engels provides the first attempt to conceptualize a stratum of workers whose objective position in the global class structure has been altered by the benefits brought their country by imperialism. Engels, in 1858, wrote that: