Working Class

[Joe R. Golowka]

> Only one disagreement with this: class analysis will not directly
> determine who will support you. But if it is meaningful, it will define
> the limits of who will oppose capitalism. That is Engels was a
> capitalist. (He owned factories and lived entirely on others labor
> rather than his own.) But, to put it mildly, he did a great deal to
> advance the interests of the working class. Class analysis is useless
> (mostly) when applied to an indidual. On the other hand we can easily
> predict, via class analysis that the majority of capitalists will never
> oppose capitalism. Class analysis can rule out trying to win socialism
> by trying to convicne the majority of captialist to become socialists.
> Don't laugh; it has been tried. I believe that at least some of the
> Fabian socialists in the 19th century tried to do just that.
>
> This is why I think the anarchist analysis of a coordinator class - a
> class that has the same relation to the means of production as the
> working class, but a different relation to work is important.  It
> identifieds a segment of the population among whom you cannot win a
> majority.

Hypothetically you could win a majority of coordinators for some variant of statist socialism, but
not libertarian socialism (anarchism).  Many visions of socialism are basically the rule of the
coordinator class (although they claim to be 'classless').  I'd argue that Mr. Schwartz's visions of
socialism is one such example, as is Bellamy's and some forms of Marxism.

--
Joe R. Golowka
JoeG at ieee.org
Anarchist FAQ - http://www.anarchyfaq.org

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be
hanged."  - Noam Chomsky