Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> Michael Dawson wrote:
> [clip]
> > I agree that it is vital to respect, include, and intellectually privilege the working
> > class
> >
>
> It's not a matter of respect or intellectual privileging. It's a matter
> of who has both an objective interest in abolishing capitalism and the
> power to actually do so. Even just within the working class, some
> sectors of the working class are more strategically situated in the
> production and distribution system than others, and workers in
> strategically crucial sectors (be they sectors that demand predominantly
> mental or physical labor) can hope to have more impact than others by
> slowing down, going on strike, refusing to cooperate with bosses, etc.
>
> > Besides, everybody is a worker, after all, by definition.
> >
>
> We are all workers, including capitalists? I'm sure that capitalists
> are happy to hear you say that.
The working class, as E.P. Thompson, Raymond Williams, Ellen Wood (and in fact many others) have argued is a process rather than a mere box of marbles called "workers." And it is impossible to predict in advance which sectors or 'threads' of that class will, at any given time, coalesce sufficiently to engage in serious battle against capital. That depends upon too many contingencies. But whenever that _does_ happen (and to whatever degree) those so coalescing, whether they are temp workers, public school teachers, department store clerks, computer analysts, fast-food restaurant managers, will begin to think of themselves as _workers_ in Yoshie's rather than Michael's sense. That kind of self-identification will be inseparable from the fact that they find themselves (intentionally or not to begin with) in struggle.
Many actual workers _at the present time_ do in fact regard even the capitalists as workers; that is part of the strength of capital at this time. And of course probably half or more of the working class think of themselves as that ineffable entity, the "Middle Class." That too is part of the strength of capital at this time.
"We," incidentally, are not going to win any great battles at this time, whatever the slogans we choose. Hence in choosing today's slogans we must think not of today but of what will be _necessary_ (whether or not possible or probable) when we find outselves in struggles from which hope can arise. (My interpretation of Gramsci's pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.) I would agree that calls to "The Workers" are not, at a national level, particularly useful _at this time_, but we can measure our progress (or Capital's regress) by the extent to which such calls do begin to make sense to 10% to 35% of the population.
(Yoshie has posted estensively in the past, as have I, of the necessity for resistance movements to see this range of percentages as powerful, not weak.)
Carrol