On the Unpopularity of Leftish TV shows....

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Sep 10 14:18:47 PDT 2002


At 04:02 PM 9/10/2002 -0400, nathan wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>
>First, there just aren't many poor white men-- most of lower class are women
>and people of color. Only 18% of white men have incomes of under $30,000 per
>year. So with 37% of the population being non-hispanic white men, we are
>talking about basically 7% of the population that is in this prototypical
>poor white male category. It would be nice to get more of them and I am all
>for promoting NASCAR and gun culture if that will pull them back on the
>economic issues, but the real key is to mobilize the real working class
>constituency in the United States-- which is overwhelmingly female and of
>color.

What is the source of that information? Is it 18% of all white males or 18% of all employed white males? $30k per year seems a very arbitrary way to define social class - you can make $70k an still be considered lower class male and a reactionary. I would also argue that income per se matters less than group identity - most people perceive themselves as "middle class" based on their consumption patterns (suburban houses, SUVs, consumption of sporting events, etc.). More importantly. "real working class" lives outside the US, in China, Malayasia, or Latin America where most of manufactured goods and increasing number of services consumed in the US are produced. What you take for working class here is a bunch of pampered rednecks with hightened sense of entitlement, superiority, sexism and ethnocentrism - who benefit from US imperialism in the form of cheap goods being brought to this country from all over the world. "Getting them" on economic issues is like trying to convert wolves to vegetarianism. I do not see that happening until these people start hurting economically, and I mean hurting really bad, like losing their trucks, their homes, going hungry - and even then the chances are they will be attracted to some fascist movement rather than to a left cause. Historically, that has often been the case - unless you had left institutions that were able to withstand the assault of the reactionary elites and the state. The German or Italian masses turned fascist as soon as fascist goons managed to destroy or paralyze the unions.

IMHO, attempts to attract people through individualist appeals are an uphill battle. A better strategy is to develop institutions, a vanguard party if you will, that will lead the masses toward left causes and policies. Without the vanguard party, the masses will be nothing more than a reactionary mob moved by petit bourgeois ideals mixed with religiosity.

wojtek



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