> >Recognizing the essence of capitalism has one virtue among others:
> >e.g., you'll see the material ground of the necessity of solidarity
>>between "skilled" and "unskilled workers," both of whom suffer from
>>exploitation by capital.
>
>Yes, of course. You know that, I know that. It's not as easy to
>convince the workers involved of that.
Even in the midst of socialist revolution, only a tiny minority of workers and peasants had ever read even a bit of Marxist theory. Reading Marxist theory -- even a great deal of it -- probably won't make anyone a Marxist. The theory of Marxism does, however, tell you where the fundamental contradiction of capitalism (which cannot be abolished without abolishing capitalism) lies, allowing you to distinguish it from a host of other social antagonisms within and between groups that we daily observe and/or experience.
As for convincing workers and other classes, some of the workers (and peasants, too, in some nations) -- our main constituency -- will never be won over to the left of any sort, including but not at all limited to the Marxist left. If we get lucky, we'll get about a third of our potential constituency on our side. Just because medicine is good for you doesn't mean that you'll necessarily take it, especially when the medicine in question tastes bitter to some.
> > Other theories might (see Steve McGraw's opinions about
>>"intellectuals" and longshoremen), in contrast to Marxism, tell you
>>that "skilled" workers (or "professionals" or whatever) exploit
>>"unskilled" ones, obscuring the fundamental relation between capital
>>and labor.
>
>At some point, members of the professional/managerial stratum take
>on qualities of the capitalist class, though in a division of
>labor/socialized form. At what point in your schema do workers join
>the ranks of exploiters? Senior vice-president?
Roughly, at the point when the main source of your income ceases to be your paycheck or social security (or some such social wage). If you can count on being able to live without a paycheck or a social security check (or some such social wage) for the rest of your life, without working for yourself or working for others, you are not part of my class.
> >Changes of the sort that you mention above fall into the purview of
>>analyses of conjunctures ("thought"), rather than "theory."
>
>You know, I've heard that one before. And there's often too much
>attention paid to how different things now than they ever were
>before at the expense of structural continuities. But this kind of
>statement reminds me of the ridiculous "analysis" of the Asian
>financial crisis of 1997/98 I heard from Paul Mattick Jr. (formerly
>Katha Pollitt's Last Marxist). Mattick started by saying he was
>going to abstract from states, financial markets, and capital flows,
>and get down to the heart of the crisis which was...the falling rate
>of profit! Gee, and why did the crisis happen when and where it did?
>A mere conjunctural concern.
You can't get directly from (A) theory to (B) conjunctural analysis, and neither can you directly get from (B) to (A). There is a necessary disjunction between (A) and (B) that can't and shouldn't be made to go away. It's like knowing your DNA doesn't help me figure out what problems (physical or psychological or sociological or whatever) you might have (except maybe a clue as to a few of congenital problems about which we've come to know something), and knowing something about what problems you have doesn't help me map your DNA.
Yoshie