"What are the _immediate_ interests of the (which?) working class as of December 21, 2001? And what do we mean by "interests", anyway -- what we think their interests are or what they think their interests are? "
--- Message Received --- From: Gordon Fitch <gcf at panix.com> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:45:30 -0500 Subject: Re: Re:reforming capitalism
Gordon this is nowhere as difficult as it is sometimes taken to be. Workers of the third and first world have for the most part identical immediate interests which include at the international level:
1) The restraint by the international community of unilateral military agression - especially that of the USA.
2) The universal reductioin and final elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
At the national level: 1) Greater democractic reform of the state and by extension controls over the direction of economic development.
2) Massive improvements in the levels of health, education and other forms of social infrastructure.
At the local level: 1) Better wages and conditions, especially for the poorest paid.
2) The creation of local community infrastructures and imporvements.
Of course this skates across the surface - in fact the question of the immediate interests of the working class (as a whole) are embarrassingly numerous and in rich diversity rather than some narrow and hard to find recipe.
Gordon, may I as the reverse question? Where are the immediate interests of the working class not manifest in some realizable and immediate change for the better?
Who are the working class of December 21, 2001? Well this is not hard to find either. Any slum in the third world, any suburb of the first world. From the desperately poor to the moderately well off, those that support radical policies and those lost in the embrace of bourgeois concerns.
Thge working class is more numerous more widespread than at anytime in its past history, but perhaps its interests are somewhat ill articulated by those who claim Socialism as their private preserve, and perhaps this political disability leads to the whole class being hidden away behind some fixed ideas that are no longer applicable?
For the bulk of the class the interest is real and lived but not necessarily either said or thought spontaneously - then why should that be the case when organisation and political agitation wallows in apologetics and nostalgia.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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