Grant Lee wrote:
>
> . As I've said before, everyone
> from peasants to merchant bankers to pods of dolphins is involved in
> particular relations of production.
I've been puzzling over this part of your posts -- the rather broad definition you give to "relations of production." Some of your arguments taking off from this have been interesting, but I'm still a bit bothered. To me "relations of production" has a rather specific meaning -- it refers to those relations which, under given historical conditions, define class. This is one of the reasons the widespread use of "middle class" bothers me: it simply does not answer to capitalist relations of production. (Relations of production in this usage means relationship to the means of production.) "Middle class" (and especially the silly term "upper middlle class") collapses class into mere stratification, with an endless (and more or less pointless) series of differentia.
Just a note stuck in for now, I'm following with interest your exchanges with Catherine.
Carrol