quoting me
>>What this represented was a reorientation from the battle over
>>production that preoccupied revolutionaries before the War, to a contest
>>over consumption, which preoccupied the New Left.
>>
>>- --
>>Jim heartfield
>By this do you mean, everyone getting a fair share of the pie, sort of
>thinking?
> that last sentence
>lost me. Please go on.
Sorry, it was put so cryptically.
I meant to contrast the concerns of the old left (1930s) with the new 1960s).
Scematically:
*Old Left*
Struggle in industry for the socialisation of production through the organisation of the working class
*New Left*
Struggle over identity for cultural liberation through the new social movements
Doubtless this is a caricature, but I do think that there was a sea- change in orientation between the two periods. Marcuse bridges the two, and his conclusion from the outcome of the 1930s is that the working class is no longer the agent of social change. His attitude to production departs from the orthodox Marxist view that this should be socialised - rather his philosophy is closer to one of opting out of hte industrial society.
As Meszaros argues against the Frankfurt School they were no longer engaged in a critique of Capitalism, but a generic critique of industrial production as such. They were no longer arguing for a dialectical transformation of capitalist production into socialism, but a romantic refusal of the modern.
In interpret this to mean that the New Left had as its social basis not the working class, and its struggle over the social product, but rather the middle class and its internecine struggle over the surplus product. That is, the old left was seeking to abolish exploitation, whereas the New Left took exploitation for granted (and hence were uninterested in industrial struggles) and were merely disputing the division of the spoils. -- Jim heartfield