United Airlines cancels 2000 flights
Labor aristocracy: owning imperialism is not enough

by MC5

The pilots of United Airlines own 25% of that company, but United 
Airlines has had to cancel 2000 flights out of Chicago as we go to 
press. The pilots say the company should hire more pilots while 
the company wants the pilots to work more overtime.

Two members of the board of directors are union representatives. 
The average pilot receives $1400 a quarter in dividends from their 
stock, but still is causing a ruckus by asking for higher pay.

What business writers find interesting is that pilots are hurting 
the value of their own stock by letting United cancel 2000 
flights, not to mention allowing the public to see their conflicts 
over paying themselves. All the pilots had to do was volunteer for 
more overtime. Why they want higher pay when they are the ones 
receiving the profits is also of some hilarity value. According to 
the imperialist bourgeoisie, the labor aristocracy is being short-
sighted and thus proving its incapacity for ruling.

To the imperialists, it appears the pilots attach no value to 
owning their own company. It seems that the pilots ask for more 
and more out of thin air even after agreeing to buy their own 
company and getting major control of it. MIM has to agree that 
such difficult people would be difficult to work with and 
cooperate with under socialism as well, if parasitic expectations 
are built in. All the organizations calling themselves communist 
in the imperialist countries fail to direct their aim at this 
problem except for MIM. Organizations such as the Workers World, 
Progressive Labor Party, Spartacist League, "Communist Party"-USA 
are busy making this problem worse.

MIM would say this problem of asking for things out of thin air is 
the very nature of imperialist parasitism. The pilots only learned 
it from people who believe that owning certain paper entitles a 
persyn to make a living without ever working. The only way that 
pilots and others will un-learn parasitism in the imperialist 
countries is through a re-civilizing stage of the international 
dictatorship of the proletariat. When force backs up the erasure 
of parasitism for a few generations, children will grow up with 
the correct values and people will be able to work together in 
harmony.

The problem is not that the world has to be poor. That is not the 
point of the cleansing stage of the dictatorship of the 
proletariat, when the imperialist petty-bourgeoisie called 
"workers" unlearns parasitism. The best, sustainable and peaceful 
economy is built on harmonious work relations and they are 
impossible without understanding the labor theory of value 
practically speaking. People who are used to oinking for super-
profits will never be progressive agents of peace, a sustainable 
environment and ethnic harmony.

MIM finds this story interesting only to remind readers that the 
so-called workers in the imperialist countries do own a piece of 
imperialism. That is what enables them to take a share of 
superprofits and receive more than the value of their labor and 
labor-power. That is why they cannot be said to be exploited. In 
fact they are a conservative influence politically even while they 
cannot help but destabilize the economy, as an expression of the 
kernel of strife built into imperialism. 

Note:

The New York Times 11 August 2000, p. C1.