Class struggle is also about the struggle for democracy which includes multi-class questions like LGBT rights. Historical materialists understand this. Humans aren't simply composed of their relation to capital -- a fact that makes democracy, socialism, and communism (ultimately) possible.
I think there are too many commonly known historical examples where a failure to grasp fundamental principles of democracy led to divisions in the class struggle that prevented advances. I think we are looking, in this post by Grant, at a contemporary rationale for it.
The right uses homophobia to divide our movement. The solution isn't to ignore it and demand that super-exploited and oppressed people shut up about it. The solution is the old labor slogan: an injury to one is an injury to all.
It's just that obvious.
Joel Wendland http://www.politicalaffairs.net
Grant Lee wrote:
>"Not caring" has nothing to do with it. I would guess that most, if not all
>of us --- meaning "leftists" --- have friends and/or relatives who are
>gay/lesbian/bisexual/transexual. We also know that capitalist society is a
>condition of artificial scarcity --- relative to the higher phase of
>communist society --- and this includes a scarcity of (economic) class
>consciousness, not to mention the time and resources with which class
>consciousness is built. Wage earners --- GLBT and straight --- remain, as
>Marx pointed out all those years ago, the only revolutionary class in a
>fully-developed capitalist society. There may be some GLBT _individuals_
>for
>whom GLBT issues _are_ a critical material concern. As a historical
>materialist, however, my belief is that issues regarding wage labour itself
>remain the key issues in regard to the class consciousness of wages
>earners
>_as_a_whole_, GLBT or straight. Therefore, the political left will be
>non-revolutionary in direct proportion to the time it spends on issues
>which
>are a material concern for only a small section of that class, such as GLBT
>workers, rather than the class as a whole.
>
>regards,
>
>Grant.
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