1) A lot of people who can't see the idea of coordinator class are responding in suprisingly moralist terms. That is they see a special role for people depending on their economic background, or make a moral judgement of individuals. Class is a very general type of analysis; people from all classes play every type of role in politics. Class analysis is not useful for this type of thing. Under capitalism it help us understand how capitalism works, and help criticize capitalism, It can help identify class interests, and thus tell us which classes as a whole may (not will , but may) oppose capitalism, and which proably won't and under what circumstnaces.
2)AS MP pointed out, when I talk "Coordinator" I am talking classic "New Class" analysis. I have a mild preference for "Coordinator" as opposed to "New Class" ,both because I think the coordinator class is at least as old as the capitalist one, and because "Coordinator" focuses more on what I think is the fundamental characteristic of that class. If someone strongly prefers thte term "New Class" I will accomodate them. If someone prefers the term "Middle Class" I hereby challenge them to a duel with Super Soakers at fifteen paces.
3)In terms of class interest, and coordinators having self interest in egalitarian socialism over capitalism. The quote here is:
>".. For if the true nature of the good is one of the things that are under our control, there is no place for either envy or jealousy; and you yourself will not wish to be a praetor or a senator or a consul but a free man..."
The problem with is argument is that it is essentially a moral one. By this argument *Capitalists* have no class interest in maintaining Capitalism, because they too would be more fully human under socialism. In point of fact there have been individual capitalists who supported socialism on just those grounds. Coordinators are better off materially than would be under egalitarian socialism. Coorinators are better off than they would be under ES in terms of working conditions. And if freedom includes 'freedom to' as well as 'freedom from' (something most
socialists I know consider important) then coordinators have more freedom under capitalism than under egalitarian socialism.
Lastly, Joanna (and others) have pointed out that workers were better off under the old Soviet Union than under the current Russian system. This is overwhelmingly evident to the unprejudiced observer; I would say it simply proves that workers are better off when ruled by a coordinator class than when ruled by a capitalist class; they are better off still when ruled no other class, but instead rule themselves. One the points that has been made is that a small elite decided to transform the Soviet Union from a "whatever it was" empire into a bunch of capitalist fragments. It was not decided by the working class as a whole - or by democratically chosen representatives of the working class. What better proof do you want that the old Soviet Union was a Coordinator state, rather that a workers state?