> Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> >They are certainly class conscious. Having gone to school at Princeon and
> >Cambridge, I can tell you from first hand experience that they have no
> >doubt about who they are. If we lose, it isn part, also, because we are
> >not class conscious enough.
>
> Justin, honeybunch, could you expound on what you mean by this? I'm sorry
> for overlimit, but I think it would be illuminating for Norm to have more
> of a sense of what you mean? E.g., would you say, for ex, that they view
> it in class warfare terms---of hostility--or something a bit less severe
> than that?
At the risk of being reductionist, I tend to see two choices constantly posing themselves in this society: should I take the stance which would benefit me and me alone, or should I take a stance which focusses rather on common solutions where all benefit. That's pretty simplistic, and there lots of scope for pathology in seeing things that way, but it acts for me as a useful gloss for Marx's goal of 'free development of each as the precondition for free development of all'. So, the idea is, there is a thing - a model of human relations if you will - called 'solidarity' - a model where people all gain by co-operating, rather than the current model where we try and gain by deploying our divise, oppressive power towards one another (the 'war of all against all').
Secondly, I'd agree with Justin - there is a kind of oligarchy in this society - a set of people who have power, hold it jealously, and know who their allies in the oligarchy are. This is not to imply that none of those dynamics happen in other groups besides the Ruling Class, but rather to suggest that there is a Ruling Class who are conscious of the fact of their rule.
And finally, there is for me another side - those who stand to gain, rather than lose from 'solidarity' because in this society they get scrwed over time and again by the structure of this society - every time they get a bank account, pay taxes, do a job, etc. they are participating in societal arrangements which disadvantage them, which constantly taps value from them and hands it over to the oligarchs. (I don't just see this as an process of moving money around, but more on that another time)
That other side exists as a class - they can be (roughly) pointed out in some 'objective' manner by attributes they hold in common. But that group need not only exist as class 'in itself' - i.e. as a definition - but rather that group might develop a sense of solidarity - a sense of common understanding and common purpose - which is class consciousness.
Sure 'class consciousness' means for me consciousness that there's a war going on - the war of the ruling class against us all - but more importantly, it means something fundamentally different to the kind of 'doing good' which is advocated by many (class unconscious) people in society. It means seeing 'doing good' as necessarily a process which involves a reorganisation of power.
As soon as you see that class exists, that thus a basis for solidarity exists, then you can see a way that the 'principle of solidarity' might replace the 'principle of competition' as the basis for society - you see that the working class can free itself (and usher in a new kind of society).
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844