>BTW, soldiers are not "working class" - since class is not an ascribed
>status or cultural identity, but the status that results form the relations
>to the means of production. Soldiers and policemen, while they do not own
>the means of production and sell their labor for wages, they are
>nonetheless agents of the state whose main responsibility is to uphold the
>existing property relations.
public school teachers and mail clerks are as well on this definition.
carrol cox and yoshie tell me that everyone who doesn't own the means of production is working class. i agree to some extent, but point out that other things come into play, using a version of your position above. but honestly wojtek, there is *something* to be said for how these folks (and others unschooled in the intricacies of marxist thought on class) subjectively think about their social class. it was important enough for marx to spend a great deal of time writing about in the 18th Brumaire and elsewhere.
and before y'all get into a huff: i have argued on this list before that it is a materialist analysis because you can ground their subjective class identities in the material relations of the labor process.
ahhh why i bother. glutton for punishment i guess. bored? have too much to do? procrastinating...?
wow. i'm starting to sound like carrol. help!
oh and milgram experiments also revealed interesting differences in response to authority when they moved the experiment from cambridge (??) to a working class community. a little more sophisticated then you've implied.
smooches, kelley