unions

[Todd Archer]

Yoshie said:

>To determine what level of abstraction is useful, one would have to first 
>think about the purpose of analysis at hand.  For some purposes, 
>differences between CEOs and shareholders who don't manage firms day to 
>day, for instance, matter; for others, they don't.  One of the problems of 
>e-list discussion is that seldom are purposes of analyses made clear, so 
>discussants end up talking entirely at cross purposes.
>- -- Yoshie

Ah!  Cold water in the face!  Refreshing!  !{)>

Doug, what I was interested in hearing was your reasoning behind why you 
feel socialization of control of capital seems to "change" the analysis of 
who controls capital.  When people on this list and elsewhere talk about 
"capitalists", "ruling classes", and "proletariat" you ask the same type of 
question or bring up the same kind of point, which involves questioning such 
an abstraction e.g. your bringing up Jackie O as a counter-example.

I'm having trouble figuring out why such questioning matters.  If, as you 
say here:

>I'm saying there's a big difference in the economic and political function, 
>and the consciousness as well, among small businesspeople, the middle 
>managers and senior managers of large corporations (further subdivided into 
>regional, national, and multinational enterprises), institutional 
>investors, and pure rentiers like Jackie O. If you don't agree, welcome to 
>the 19th century.

there are all these differences between these people (and I presume you have 
a reason why you picked these particular examples, right?) which negates 
abstracting their commonalities, then it seems to me that, let's say, Marx's 
analysis (since I've yet to find the time or spare funds to read others' 
analyses) as he sets it out in the Manifesto (and all those who used his 
abstraction) must be thrown out the window.  No abstraction will be able to 
come close enough to tracing how all those people think.  It'll come down to 
individual psychology, won't it, if I'm following you (and I sincerely hope 
I'm not)?

I like Yoshie's comment, that people have different ideas in mind in this 
thread when they talk about class, different certainly from yours.  Myself, 
since the only author I've read in depth is Marx, I tend strongly to use his 
(notice I don't say, "His", Justin  !{)>  ) words and threads of logic (for 
all that I understand them; I think I do to a fair extent).

Todd

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