I typically refer to the phenomenon of petty bourgeoisie and labor aristocracy colonizers appropriating the plight of labor as the whitewashing of the working class. It functions in a way that effectively silences the global proletariat and centers agents of capital.

This happens in a handful of ways. The OG way this happens usually looks like US Republicans appealing to working people but clearly they mean white men working specific jobs (usually construction, manufacturing, welding, firefighters, police; gendered jobs). Its used as a racist dogwhistle. Think Mike Roe from dirty jobs. Citations Needed has a good podcast about this. Democrats do it too but are ever so slightly lighter on the dogwhistles. This imagines labor as the noble petty bourgeoisie colonizer man who works much harder than his counter parts and is worthy of capital’s recognition.

Another way is moralizing labor. Its the typical liberal view of labor. The reason this is a problem is because it makes it impossible to criticize “labor” unions that hurt the global proletariat. If you criticize or resist police unions or other unions that participate in accommodationism and imperialism you are met with all sorts of cope and a fist full of accusations that you are anti union, anti labor. Labor is painted as universally and equally good and can always get paid even more, even if they are functional parasites on the global proletariat by consuming imperial spoils. It basically makes it hard to challenge the labor aristocracy and thus imperialism while keeping the labor aristocracy centered over the global proletariat. Typically the rhetoric behind this has some kind of “bless their hearts, the Republicans dont know that unions aren’t communist.”

One arena this happens in is professional sports players. This phenomenon puts both ways together. First it asserts that a MLB baseball player is proletarian. He does labor for a boss, putting him on par with any and all forms of labor. Players in MLB are exclusively male and while MLB is somewhat international and integrated, there are fewer Black Americans now than in the past (this is a can of worms that can quickly get me llst in the weeds but basically racism was not cured by Jackie Robinson). Currently MLB players are making between $700,000-$42M a year with an average of $4.41M. People go to extreme lengths to justify this, using sabermetrics and analyitics to be able to craft the fib that hitting a home run (or whatever) litterally creates money for owners. It goes without saying that this neglects the construction workers, attendents, concession employees, merchandise manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, the player development organizations in the DR, broadcasting and camera operating crews, field crew; all the many sections of labor that goes into creating the MLB along with neglecting distribution and other parts of the process, including the fact that the US is wealthy enough to have an enterprise such as MLB entirely because of imperialism.

Of course MLB players represent a clear labor aristocracy. The easiest section to “bribe” as they say.

But the MLB players association is widely respected among baseball fans as a bastion of labor power. If you question this you are quickly branded as an owner bootlicker. During this last offseason the owners locked out the players from baseball activities until a CBA could be made and there were constant conversations about supporting the players over the owners. It makes sense from a moral perspective, but functionally the owners cannot lose this game. If the owners get their way with the CBA then they win. If the players get their way, then the owners still win because the players are still a paid off labor aristocracy and the owners maintain total control of the operation regardless of a few adjustments.

To my knowledge the MLBPA has had a bad track record of solidarity with labor. However, recently the players assocation has worked to help minor league players form their own union. Minor leaguers are famously paid too little to really be able to do their job unless they were given a signing bonus on draft day, so this is the first sign of solidarity. Today a second sign emerged with the MLBPA joining the AFL-CIO. These two developments have given fans more reason to respect the MLBPA as a labor organization.

Of course, in truth, the AFL-CIO has a history of racism, it supported the Vietnam War, it represents police unions, and is not actually consistent on actual labor issues. So baseball fans can now be proud of the MLBPA standing in solidarity with cops. Beyond that, it seems that even tho minor leaguers are in need of a union the MLBPA is likely protecting its backside by empowering minor leaguers and Id be surprised if their empathy extends beyond baseball players that are told all their achievements on the field are theirs alone.

My intention is not to say nothing productive could come of this new trend but rather to lay out why I think it is directly in line with the whitewashing of the working class into colonial instruments that are weilded by capital. I get worn down hearing the most yawn inducing developments getting lauded as major victories for labor when in reality it is just another brick in the wall.

steps down from soap box