thanks for your response.
norm
-----Original Message----- From: Justin Schwartz
If you really want to think about whether Marxist definitions of class might
be useful, you ought to read some of the literature on the subject. On one account (G.A. Cohen's), class is defined by ownership and control of productive assets: those who control their own labor power but no significant productive assets are workers, for example. This leaves out the dimensions of class consciousness and organization that Marx insists on and which are emphasozed by E.P. Thompson. the problem of the "middle class"--people who seem to own some productivea ssets but not toi be either classic small producers or big capitalsits--is extensively discussed, e.g., by Eric Olin Wright. A good summary of the recent debate on classes is in Jeffrey Sitton's Recent Marxist Theory. But don;ta ssume that Marxism is naive about class: if there is one thing that that they have paid some attention to, it's that. --jks