>The point may well be to change the world, but understanding it might be a prerequisite. And achieving such an understanding might be more difficult than slapping a slogan on the next generation of workers. Those workers might have another story to tell, and those who are interested in having a meaningful conversation with them might want to listen. Don't you think it is important to somehow leaven our theory with life?
You talk as if all I did was to repeat a slogan and say no more. In fact of course I said quite a bit more and went into some detail. I even leavened the analysis with an example from my own life. I feel I have already done everything you ask of me.
Perhaps I didn't caution that some workers sometimes feel they have some of the good things in life, but Christ man, I wasn't writing a book or an academic thesis. Obviously a slogan isn't the whole truth. And there's nothing in that slogan to suggest that capitalists=good and workers=bad. ("Four legs good, two legs, baaaa-d!" Is how Orwell ridicules this dichotomy in Animal Farm.) That sort of thinking misses the whole point, which is that it isn't about good or bad people, its the materialist conception, that systems make people what they are. That is the point of that slogan, not that capitalists are born evil and workers are all saints.
>Because I am currently doing some work on the "problem of exploitation," and because you ground your politics so profoundly in class, I would be interested in hearing how you theorize class, class antagonism, etc. Do you subscribe to some version of Marx's view of exploitation- defined as the expropriation of surplus value? I do, but I have only just begun trying to figure out how that all plays out down at the local Denny's.
Yes, I subscribe to something like Marx's theory of surplus value. "Something like", because I can't say for certain I understand what Marx's theory was, but I can't discern any discrepancies between what he was saying and how I understand it. My definition of class is simple, if you have enough capital so you don't have to work for a living, you are a capitalist. If not, you are working class.
What is a local "Denny's"? I can't suggest any analysis of that situation, since I'm ignorant of the context. Don't imagine it would present any problems for class analysis though, if it does, then the class analysis is wrong.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas