Service sector accounts for more than half of all jobs in the world today according to statistics. Marx already knew that capitalism tends to displace the workforce away from industry and agriculture towards services, we can only expect this trend to increase. Today this is true even of a lot of global south countries.
I'm not an expert but I can see that service sector is a very heterogenous one, or we could say that it's even an umbrella term for very different jobs with very different social conditions, organizing potential class consciousness etc. Work in shitty uber-like apps, in restoration and hospitality, a lot of retail, and etc. are very hard to organize, health and education seem to be a suit generis sector as far as I know, blue collar work is practically labour aristocracy in a lot of cases or also hard to organize in the case of
I invite you all anons to discuss what do you think is the place of service sector in revolutionary praxis, taking into account the different conditions in the different countries (global north vs south, regions etc) if possible. In a lot of global north countries industrial work is practically labour aristocracy and in its way ti be extinct, and as far as I'm aware in a lot pf global south countries they also hold that status, for example, LATAM region. Should we focus on propaganda on industrial worker and organize the other sectors from an industrial proletariat base? Should we also try to organize the shitty service jobs creating now forms of syndicalism that can adapt to their unstable conditions? For example, in a lot of countries a there must be a certain (high) number of workers in order to be represented in a trade union. Is a more flexible and dynamic trade union structure for specific service employers belonging to this shitty unstable jobs possible? Is it even worth it?
I know the formulation of the problem could be more informed, but even though I'm not very knowledgeable, I wanted to make this thread in order for the more knowledgable anons to discuss this topic as I don't see it talked very much. I please ask you all to not enter the same old productive/unproductive work debate and stay on-topic.
Those uber jobs are gig jobs not just service, gig jobs dont need to exist in place of service jobs.
Uber and such would cease to exist if worker rights were expanded upon, this has already been the case in some economies
>>2830850Let's exclude gigs and focus on service jobs in general. What is their place in strategy? Is the industrial proletariat to lead the movement and make concessions to them as was done in the past with the peasantry? Can they provide a base for the movement? How should we ML approach their labour movements?
I can't give practical advice on organising them but socialists in pretty much every developed country have to accept they're only game in town and that waiting for socdems to bring the industrial proletariat back with a time machine is LARP.
Crucially: the share of agricultural and industrial workers is falling worldwide. There will always be some, but technological development trends towards reducing the need for such labour (in aggregate) and increasing the returns to service work in a U-shaped curve. (In early industrialisation, you hire fewer servants and use labour saving devices in the home. Later, you automate the factory to the degree it's now worthwhile to have someone provide customer services for the resulting manufactured goods…)
First world countries have a shit ton of service workers and only to think about it gives me vertigo. How tf to mobilize that mass of bullshit labour?
>>2830974This chart is global, btw. China is THE industrial capital of the world, and they still only have roughly 30% of their population employed in industry.
>>2830817I think a lot of this is inevitable simply as systems of automation increase standard of living worldwide, but service jobs are inherently less stable and have historically been more exploited.
>>2830891Service jobs will always be necessary, right now they’re just a sign of a further developing standard of living. The biggest issue is with the ways capitalists use them as inroads or excuses to force the labor force to go underpaid for tips, or work extra “side hustles” they can extract value from. Can they be organized? Of course.
>>2830916 Like this comment says, they’re still necessary and inevitable, always have been, always will be. What we need to do is regulate their conditions until it’s functionally only as profitable as necessary in any society.