Doug,
The listserv won't allow me to join, because I am allegedly sending "spam" (presumably the obligatory admonition to "join mail.com" which comes at the end of every e-mail message). Would appreciate it if you could pass on the following to Michael Albert.
Hello Mr. Albert,
I haven't had the time to study the ParEcon model in-depth, but what I do find fascinating is your analysis of what you deem to be a failure of classical Marxism: the unacknowledged existence of a Coordinator Class between Labor and Capital.
I think this is a useful insight for a lot of reasons, not least of which is my suspicion that the majority of people today who are able to occupy the position of "activist," whether professional as an NGO or trade-union staffer or simply people who tend to have a lot of time on their hands to attend meetings, are members of this coordinator layer of society.
Someone on this list has already asked you about what they perceive as the difficulties in avoiding the preponderance of this social layer in a post-revolutionary society.
More interesting to me is how exactly you would define this social layer. There are of course obvious examples of specialized mental labor like managers, etc. But it seems to me there is a certain muddiness to the concept.
Is the defining characteristic that "working-class" labor is rote, whereas "coordinator" labor is by it's nature creative and fulfilling? In this case, a lot of occupations which I would otherwise consider naturally suited to the coordinator class analysis, such as teachers or social workers, might not belong, owing to the fact that such labor is often deeply alienating and the individuals who perform such labor powerless.
Is the defining characteristic mental labor vs. manual labor? In this case, where does this leave contemporary computer programmers who often have to work with pre-existing software modules, sit in a cubicle, take orders, etc. The labor is mental rather than manual, but it has a rote, uncreative quality often associated with factory line-work.
Is the issue a monopoly of certain knowledge? If so, where does that leave "skilled" workers (for example, electricians in an autoplant).
I think the coordinator class concept a potentially powerful analytical tool, provided it is relatively easy to define. I'm already with you 9/10ths of the way when you say that Marxism is probably the ideological expression of this Coordinator Class, assuming we mean that this class, by its position in the production process, is often moved to anti-capitalist politics, but in an elitist and potentially authoritarian manner.
I suppose from a "classical" Marxist position, I would define the difference between a "Coordinator" and a "Worker" so: a worker sells his ability to labor (in the abstract) for a certain period of time, while a coordinator is essentially selling access to their specialized knowledge.
I think this is a very important question. I think the question of the "working-class" is all too often a "moral" one for much of the Left. That is to say, many left activists pick a definition of the "working-class" which best suits their own position in society, either as a means of acquiring legitimacy or as a means coping with the guilt of being, say, a white-collar employee.
My experience here in Germany is that the current core of the "movement" is comprised of primarily this coordinator layer: intellectuals, students, white-collar employees, writers, artists, etc.
But when pressed about the problematic of trying to formulate an anti-capitalist politics in the interest of the working-class in the absence of an actual mass movement of the working-class, these individuals are always quick to say something like, "well, I get a paycheck for a living. I'm a worker as well." Case in point: an acquaintance of mine who is a Computer Science student, who refers to the degraded nature of programming work today as evidence of his "proletarian" status.
Eagerly waiting for your response.
solidarity,
Alex L.
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