ABSTRACT
Acts of solidarity in one place, especially in the advanced industrial societies, only strengthen the movement of the subaltern everywhere. The United States, always the innovator in the abrogation of labor’s rights—historically congealed not only in prohibitions of strikes and boycotts but also in the rank exclusion of blacks from the industrial workplace except in times of war—is a pioneer in introducing a new dimension of subalternity. For in the final accounting, the assault against the subaltern is directly proportional to the level of understanding and mobilization in both the developed and the developing world that they share a common foe: global capital. “Subalternity” is a euphemism for the excluded—the “other,” the despised, the wretched of the earth. For better or for worse, the subaltern has been identified with the poor peasant classes, including the urban reserve army of labor, of what used to be termed “the Third World” and is now, more accurately, called “the developing world.”.
