> Alec Ramsdell wrote:
>
> >Not a cop out at all - if anything a charitable
> >presumption of reading skills. It maintains an
> >inflexible and distorting perspective illusion to
> >think of "class struggle" as a struggle between two
> >classes - working class and ruling class. Or in
> >simple terms of oppressor and oppressed,
> authoritarian
> >vs. anti-authoritarian. These theoretical frames
> >don't fit a messy reality. A former worker who is
> >hired for management doesn't have her consciousness
> >instantly and magically changed from "worker" to
> >"ruler." Very simple points.
>
> You're right, those theoretical frames are quite
> useless. But they are not any definition of class
> that a thinking person might advance, so that
> doesn't prove anything.
>
> First of all, class isn't an occupational category.
> A worker hired to perform management work is still a
> worker, not a "former worker" as you blithely
> assert. Second, class isn't dependent on
> "consciousness". A worker who is not class conscious
> is still a worker and a capitalist who isn't class
> conscious is nevertheless a capitalist.
What I wrote doesn't contradict this. I agree that class isn't an occupational category nor is it dependent on consciousness; but the question of class consciousness is important politically. The "former worker" was a straw man example to highlight the latter.
Todd Archer wrote:
> Where have people been flattening out these complex
> groups and insisting
> their abstraction is the one that most closely
> matches reality?
In the authoritarian vs. anti-authoritarian discussion.
> Can you please tell me where I can find a good
> argument that class struggle,
> in the abstract, is NOT, ultimately, between two
> classes. An argument that
> has stood up to critique by or endorsed by "good",
> "Marxist", thinkers.
That's a good if difficult point that takes the issue a step further. I'm rereading Empire which is relevant here concerning the change in what constitutes the proletariat. My reservations about what sometimes appears to be a too-easy use of working class vs. ruling class runs along these lines: "We need to recognize that the very subject of labor and revolt has changed profoundly. The composition of the proletariat has transformed and thus our understanding of it must too. . . . The fact that under the category of proletariat we understand *all* those exploited by and subject to capitalist domination should not indicate that the proletariat is a homogenous or undifferentiated unit." (p. 52-53)
Apologies for any peevishness. I'd also defer to Gar's post on "class analysis."
Alec
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