"New Class"? Weber Redux!

[Peter K.]

Yoshie:
>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.


This last line sort of surprises me; granted you say "extreme political
importance," but it seems to me that most leftists who complain about
identity politics simply feel it is secondary. Of course, the question is
what does secondary entail.

>From my experience, radicals who harp on the new class are anarchists (e.g.
Z's Michael Albert and his obsession with "coordinators") Their point is
that should a revolution occur, this new class will axiomatically try to
usurp power from the "true" working class. To hedge against this, they
argue, a revolutionary movement should be made as democratic as possible.

Taking a page from Carrol's playbook, I'd say, should a revolutionary
movement with some clout come into existence, at that time we can see what
form it takes and what happens and take it from there. If it's too
vanguardish, I'm sure I'd be rounded up with the rest of the protesting
anarchists. These are some pretty big what-ifs, however.

Peter