"The trick that Marx is teaching us here is how to combine a commitment to the religious freedom of Jews, Muslims, Christians etc with the wholesale rejection of the presumption that, in a class society, the state can represent the general interest. Yes, Jews, Muslims, people of faiths that we may not share – or even much like – must be emancipated immediately. Yes, women, black people and LGBTQ+ people must be granted equal rights well before any socialist revolution appears on the horizon. But freedom will take a lot more than that.
Shifting to the topic of immigrant workers suppressing the wages of local workers, another minefield for today’s younger people, a letter Marx sent in 1870 to two associates in New York City offers brilliant clues on how to deal not only with the Nigel Farages of the world but also with some leftists who have bitten the anti-immigration bait.
In his letter, Marx fully acknowledges that American and English employers were purposely exploiting cheap Irish immigrant labour, pitting them against native-born workers and weakening labour solidarity. But for Marx it was self-defeating for trade unions to turn against the Irish immigrants and espouse anti-immigration narratives. No, the solution was never to banish immigrant workers but to organise them. And if the problem is the weakness of the unions, or fiscal austerity, then the solution can never be to scapegoat immigrant workers.
Speaking of trade unions, Marx also has some splendid advice for them. Yes, it is crucial to boost wages to reduce worker exploitation. But let us not fall for the fantasy of fair wages. The only way to render the workplace fair is to do away with an irrational system based on the strict separation of those who work but do not own and the tiny minority who own but do not work."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/03/marxism-economy-populism-tech-karl-marx
No artigo "Representações e orientações do movimento sindical face ao trabalho e ativismo feminino em Portugal, 1850-1926", Joana Dias Pereira analisa a "acção coletiva feminina durante a industrialização portuguesa e as consequentes representações e orientações sindicais sobre a mulher trabalhadora".
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