Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> Some people even exclude cops from their
> >>definition of working class.
> >
> >Cops are, like scabs, traitors to the class:
> >
>
> This is silly. THey're mostly just working class people who want a civil
> service job with decent pay and benefits.
That's also an accurate description of scabs. And initial motivation (which in any case probably varies greatly from individual to individual) is inadequate as a basis for analysis.
Firemen have often been _used_ as strikebreakers -- and very often they have been quite willingly used for that purpose. But "strikebreaker" is not part of the job definition for firefighters -- it is part of the job definition for police. And police constitute an instance in which there is, for the most part, a fairly rigid and mechanical derivation of consciousness from practice. They grow to fit their job.
Carrol