Same with Yoshie's analysis of class. To me Wright's analysis of class (on a sociological level -- I appreciate kelley et al's criticism of that approach -- which to me don't make it wrong, just one-sided) describes reality pretty well. The emergence of largely autonomous wage earners, and high-level supervisors who see very little of their surplus value appropriated, have contradictory roles in the class system, then we should engage this reality. It doesn't by any means "write off" the working class (as Yoshie's mis-reading of Wright's conclusion has it) -- he merely shows that while certain people may be exploited (still employing the labor theory of value, contrary to Yoshie's claim), they may also have very strong reasons to line up behind capital -- not just because of perception, but because of actual power they hold. (That's why I think this kind of sociological analysis is a good counterweight to general discussions of "consciousness" -- which are valuable, but can also end up as guesswork. cf. this list for evidence).
In other words, dismissing Wright because his analysis does damage to traditional views (or even "writes off" such views -- which he doesn't) of the working class doesn't prove your point. He *intends* to do such damage. The question is, is he right? And if not, marshall the evidence, or at least a tenable alternative.
CK
----- Original Message ----- From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Friday, February 18, 2000 1:59 PM Subject: Re: "New Class"? Weber Redux!
> Doug:
>
> >>The concept of the 'New Class' is obscurantist; it has more to do with
> >>Weber than Marx, and it helps to perpetuate the empiricist denial of the
> >>primary contradiction of capitalism: capital versus labor. Most people
> >>whom social scientists classify as 'New Class' are simply white-collar
> >>workers. Many empirical and subjective divisions & hierarchical
relations
> >>exist within the working class, but they have to be analyzed as
> >>contradictions _within_ the working class.
> >
> >But these "new class" people give orders to others on the job
> >(meaning workers perceive them as bosses, even if they're only
> >glorified forepersons), and don't at all feel working class (quite
> >the contrary, they run screaming from the identification). I know
> >perception and feeling don't matter much to you, but they really do
> >matter for politics. So while these NC people may "objectively" be
> >part of the working class, it's a bit more complicated than you're
> >making it out to be.
>
> In my message above, I don't say that "empirical and subjective divisions
&
> hierarchical relations" don't matter; in fact, they matter _a lot_, and
> that is why work of feminists, black radicals, etc. is of extreme
political
> importance, and so are struggles over skills, control, & autonomy in
> workplaces. However, they have to be analyzed as secondary contradictions
> _within_ the working class.
>
> Those who are possessed by "the pre-eminent preoccupation...with the
> 'embarrassment of the middle classes'" (which is the starting point of
Erik
> Olin Wright's & many other Western Marxists's theorizing) either
themselves
> eventually become post-Marxists or pave the way for post-Marxist revenges
> of Weber against Marx.
>
> There is no reason to posit a _separate_ class -- the "new petty
> bourgeoisie" (e.g., Nicos Poulantzas), the "new class" (e.g., Alvin
> Gouldner), the "professional-managerial class" (Barbara and John
> Ehrenreich), "middle strata," etc. -- _between_ labor and capital. To
> repeat, divisions & hierarchies have to be analyzed _within_ the working
> class. Otherwise, you end up reinforcing at the level of theory the
> empirical divisions that must be fought in politics. Moreover, you end up
> replacing exploitation by domination as the basis of class relation. In
> fact, Erik Olin Wright took note of this problem when he was first
> criticizing other scholars' conceptualization of "the middle classes," but
> through his adoption & modification of John Roemer's account of class and
> exploitation -- which does away with the labor theory of value -- Wright
> creates a view of exploitation based upon the notion of "assets": "Classes
> in capitalist society...should be seen as rooted in the complex
interaction
> of three forms of exploitation: exploitation based on the ownership of
> capital assets, the control of organization assets and the possession of
> skill or credential assets" (Wright, _Classes_, 283). Michael Yates wrote
> in his reply to Kelley: "After the talk, Wright made some remarks about
the
> benefits of markets which seemed to me to be completely off the mark."
> This is not surprizing, in that, in Roemer's & Wright's accounts, the
labor
> market as such & the extraction of surplus labor through it are not at all
> the central mechanism of reproducing class relations under capitalism. In
> short, the preoccupations with the "middle classes" tend to efface or
erase
> the core principle of Marixst critique of the market and wage labor.
>
> Lastly, "the pre-eminent preoccupation...with the 'embarrassment of the
> middle classes'," however it is expressed in theory, makes people define
> the working class _very narrowly_. While Wright rightly argues against
the
> manual labor definition, the productive labor definition, and the
> culturalist definition of "what the working class is," according to his
own
> account, "even if...we exclude all possessors of marginal exploitation
> assets from this designation [of exploiters], somewhere around one quarter
> of the labour force in Sweden and the United States are exploiters.
Looked
> at in terms of families rather than individuals, an even higher proportion
> of families have at least one person in an exploiting class within them,
> *probably around forty per cent of all households*" (emphasis added, 285).
> With his notion that those who can "exploit skills and other non-capital
> assets" are "exploiters," the working class gets defined away in his
theory.
>
> While we often make fun of the RCP's and other Western Maoists' view of
the
> terrain of class struggles in rich nations, theorists preoccupied with
> defining "the middle classes" in fact do no better than risible
> "sectarians."
>
> Yoshie
>
>