kelley wrote:
>that is, in a capitalist
> political economy it is assumed that one's class position is a personal
> *achievement* --the result of one's personal success or failure at getting
> 'there' or maintaining being there. economic crises, then, become obvious,
> observable occasions for the production of identity:
I think this is important and true, and the ways in which poverty is seen as an attribute of certain identities is crucial, but I will add it only works given the presumption that those 'identities' are outside the frame of the definition of the 'norm', so that an imaginary distance can be created between capitalism and its necessary results and premises such as the relative impoverishment of the majority.
but there's a sense in which linking the ethos of individual achievement and the projection of fears is perhaps specific to anglo-american societies. that is certainly in evidence here, but I suspect not as much as in the US. the US is quite different to Australia (and Europe) in just how deep this ethos runs, manifest in the quite different histories of the welfare state for instance in each of those places, in the extent to which 'the market' is seen as the result of personal traits, merit, etc.
so, where you write of Ehrenreich:
> Ehrenreich's _fear of falling_ comes up with the very same analysis: in
> response to structural economic shifts, the professional middle class
> experiences anxiety--a fear of falling.
Balibar writes:
"If it is true that the experience of the fascist movements suggests a sort of collective 'acting out' tied to the anxiety produced by situations of crisis or social transformation, the actual content of their ideology and their policies suggests that the topography within which this psychic dynamic would become intelligible must be completed by a dimension that Freud ignored. Can the subject's 'irrational' oscillation between the fear or revolt that a discretionary (state) power inspires in him, and the recourse to an even more authoritarian and personalised state be understood if we do not suppose that individuals (in fact, men) have a constant unconscious fear that the power that collectively maintains them _above_ the various 'subhumans' is not also capable of precipitating them into the ranks of the latter by its arbitrary decisions? Or yet, in another possible configuration, is it not necessary to suppose that they unconsciously fear discovering or facing up to the _emptiness_ of this 'superhuman' place of authority (instituted by the state, occupied by the 'head of state'), upon which nonetheless depends, by a tie of love and institutional recognition, their condition as men, that is, their collective elevation above subhumans and particularly above women."
from "Fascism, psychoanalysis, freudo-marxism", in _Masses, Classes, Ideas_, p.188.
so, then, according to Balibar, the arbitrariness of state power, and indeed the fact that _everyone knows_ that the allocation of people to misery and wealth is arbitrary, is the presupposition of this fear and panic. now, Balibar might ring truer to me than he does to you, especially given the respective centrality of state and market in this allocation here and in the US, but there are reasons why it still might be quite pertinent to the US. not least of which in comprehending the force of such panics amongst relatively privileged sections of the population around things like 'political correctness', as the fear of a re-organisation of the terms of the distribution of rewards and recognition by state agencies.
in the end, I'm quite eclectic about what I think is useful stuff on these questions, and Balibar and Ehrenreich (at least here) don't strike me as mutually exclusive offerings. but on the other question (of how to break with these attachments), another post, though I will add, as a prelude to the next post, that what is important for me about Balibar is that he doesn't see racism (or even the above panic) as premised on the absence of knowledge, on ignorance, but rather on the existence of a particular kind of knowledge. ie., the relatively privileged _know_ that their situation is arbitrarily arrived at, or else this 'fear of falling' would not be so easily and regularly called up.
Angela _________