On the Question of Methodology in Labour History

What is it about?

The question of method in labour history requires clarity on the issues of relationship between class exploitation and various forms of social oppression, the need for the analytical category of working class as the foundation, the need for understanding the relative autonomy of the state from the ruling class and its role in serving the long-term class interests of the ruling class. Also, labour history must not fall prey to the error of valorizing the everyday forms of resistance by the working class over its collective class organization and resistance. It is important that a labour historian takes the relation between labour and capital as its central subject-matter and treats state with its relative autonomy as the representative of the long-term collective class interests of the capitalist class rather than individual class interests of certain factions or certain members of capitalist class. These are some foundational issues on which clarity is a pre-requisite for a labour historian.

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