LET’S start with the first question — what “labour aristocracy” means, because the term has been and is today used in a variety of ways and it remains an area of debate amongst Marxists.

The Russian anarchist (and anti-Marxist) Mikhail Bakunin first used the term “aristocracy of labour” in the 1870s to refer to what he called the “upper layer” of the working class; “those who are the most cultured, who earn more and live more comfortably than all the other workers.”

In opposition to Marx and others, he challenged the idea that organised workers are the most radical and could lead to a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”

The term was later developed by Lenin in his Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). Lenin argued that profits extracted from their colonies (where wages were much lower) enabled some employees in capitalism’s metropolitan heartlands to enjoy higher wages (and receive other perks such as education and housing) so that they would be broadly satisfied with their living standards and disinclined to challenge the status quo.

Lenin argued that imperialism effectively slowed class polarisation at home by exporting exploitation and poverty to its dominions. He argued that the most favourable conditions for a workers’ revolution were in developing countries such as Russia.

Letters in the Morning Star have challenged the notion of a labour aristocracy. One questioned an assertion in an earlier Full Marx column that “significant sections of the left and working-class movements including the ‘labour aristocracies’” were sustained by imperialism, declaring: “Surely Lenin was not the originator of trickle-down economics?”

Another letter cited Marx’s argument in his pamphlet Wages, Price and Profit that workers’ wages are generally “based on the socially necessary labour time to reproduce their labour” and that employers will always seek to reduce them to the minimum.

It challenged “the theory of a labour aristocracy (or indeed the working class as a whole) bought off or bribed out of the profits of colonialism or imperialism.”

Both correspondents are right, of course. But the anarchy of capitalism means that the constant downward pressure on wages is not uniform across different occupational sectors. Some workers, because of skill shortages, strong unionisation or other factors, have managed to keep their wages above the average.

Others, in sectors like agriculture, distribution, and retail — and particularly those in precarious work on zero-hours contracts or bogus self-employment — suffer poverty wages alongside appalling and often dangerous working conditions.

Both correspondents are right to ask “How did workers get bosses to put their plunder on the negotiating table?” The answer is — they didn’t.

Some bosses — or at least the most prescient representatives of the capitalist class — were keen to do so, if it would help them continue to make a profit, frustrate labour unity and stem any mass movement to socialism. Divide and rule has always been one of the ways that the powerful maintain control.

Engels, in his 1887 preface to his (1845) Condition of the Working Class in England, writes of the way that, following the collapse of Chartism, certain groups of (manual) workers — engineers, carpenters and joiners, bricklayers — including those organised by what have been described as the “new model unions” (representing individual groups of skilled workers) in contrast to the earlier consolidated unions of the 1830s and ’40s, “form an aristocracy among the working class; they have succeeded in enforcing for themselves a relatively comfortable position” […] “for more than fifteen years not only have their employers been with them, but they with their employers, upon exceedingly good terms.”

He declares: “The truth is this: during the period of England’s industrial monopoly the English working class have, to a certain extent, shared in the benefits of the monopoly. These benefits were very unequally parcelled out amongst them; the privileged minority pocketed most, but even the great mass had, at least, a temporary share now and then.”

The concessions were not just economic, they were social and political. Mechanics’ Institutes providing education for the literate skilled workers proliferated, some initiated “from below,” others endowed and sometimes controlled by local industrialists. Some of them housed elementary schools for their members’ children.

Some housed new “permanent” building societies offering the prospect of a house (and a vote) to their thrifty, sober, industrious (male) students. There was a spectacular growth of friendly societies. All manifested the benefits of (individual) self-help rather than collective resistance and were seen by the ruling classes “for what they were, agents of social accommodation rather than agents of social change.”

And the representatives of capital were happy to offer that accommodation — to some. Engels wrote how in 1867: “In spite of the mass movement of the workers for universal suffrage the second electoral reform law, owing to the treachery of the opportunist trade union leaders, granted the franchise only to house-owners, householders and tenants of flats who paid an annual rent of no less than £10. Thus, only the labour aristocracy was enfranchised.”

The nature and role of a labour aristocracy in the past remain a matter for historical research and debate.

For example, some on the left have argued that, in a global context, the whole of the British working class represents a labour aristocracy, enjoying the fruits of colonialism and imperial exploitation, but Eric Hobsbawm makes clear that in the 19th century, at least “such crumbs from the super profits as were thrown to the workers certainly went to the labour aristocracy and not to very many others.”

Perhaps the most interesting question is not whether a labour aristocracy existed at the time of Marx and Engels, but whether one exists today and if so what it is and how it gets (or is given) its privileges.

At least part of the answer will hinge on definitions of “labour” (useful or otherwise) and who constitutes the working class — aristocratic or otherwise.

For example, some argue that a labour aristocracy does exist but that its nature is continually changing. At least until recently some of those employed in financial services and IT have enjoyed significantly better wages and conditions than average. Companies like PWC, Facebook (sorry, “Meta”) and Microsoft pass on to (some of) their employees (some of) the vast profits they make through consultancy, advertising, and “selling” data.

Effectively they “fish” in a pool of surplus value, extracting their profits from the labour of other workers producing physical goods and services — at home and in the rest of the world.

All are, technically, members of the working class — they (probably) own no significant capital, they (probably) don’t individually exploit others; but some at least enjoy salaries and perks well above the average and their work — their labour — can be seen as parasitic on the work of others, helping to maintain the system which ensures that exploitation continues.

But as capitalism spirals into recession even financial giants and big tech companies (from Goldman Sachs to Google) are laying off workers. And individuals too can change their roles.

Highly paid footballers or pop stars (most sportspeople and musicians are not well-paid) may start off as members of the working class but many end up employers or investors, exploiting others and top-league clubs are themselves often a source of profit for their owners.

All of the above is open for debate. What is clear is that recent decades have seen a relative reduction in salary and status — if you like, a “proletarianisation” — of many of those employed in what might formerly have been considered “middle-class” occupations such as doctors, teachers and lawyers.

As the economic crisis grows, ever more groups are being forced into industrial action to protect their wages and conditions. And in the process, those involved increasingly see their common interest with other groups of workers and the need to work together, in the workplace, with local communities and with campaigning groups, to secure a better world.

Theory and practice go hand in hand.

That’s something emphasised strongly in the Marx Memorial Library’s educational programme including its two current eight-week online courses Capitalism, Crisis and Imperialism and Making Our Own History — a User’s Guide to Marx’s Historical Materialism starting today, Monday, January 23. Details, together with downloadable copies of previous answers in this series (this is number 90), are on the library’s website www.Marx-Memorial-Library.org.uk.