Cliff Staples wrote:
>
> >
> >
> 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.
>
It doesn't play out there at all. Expecting it to stems from getting levels of abstraction mixed. Theory (e.g. the Marxist theory of exploitation and of capitalist contradiction) provides a framework for thougt but it won't do your thinking for you.
This is important. There is a huge literature, for example, arguing over whether one should "privilege" class or race or gender, or how one should "combine" class analysis and gender analysis, etc., but class operates at a wholly different level of abstraction from race and gender, and the debate is utterly futile.
Carrol