<html><body> John Thornton asks: "James, do you believe that the way our society is currently aligned is the choice of the working class?" JG: No, I don’t. Hence the ‘communist’ part of my e-mail address. JT: "Give them livable clean densely populated urban habitats and the communities that this encourages instead of car dependant alienating sprawl and the unacquirable happiness of attempting to consume your way to satisfaction." JG: You sound like a battery farmer. Why don’t you want people to determine needs for themselves? I grew up in a dismal suburb, which I hated. But my parents loved it. They could drive wherever they needed to go, they had space, a garden, a supermarket in easy driving distance. Who are you to tell them that they shouldn’t want that? ---- Charles: I've never seen the Sopranos, […] but I have to object to its contribution to Gangster Rap culture. JG: Chill out. A T Shirt is just a T Shirt. I’ve got an ‘Eric The Bloodaxe Rules OK’ T-Shirt. He was a Viking raider who terrorised the North East coast of England in the ninth century. Do you object to that too? ^^^^^^^^ CB: You are going to have to make up your mind on this one. At some points you are championing the "right" of working classes to make this decision about what they want and need and now you refer to the same working class ( that of the fifties in the U.S.) as on happy pills when they made exactly that type of decision. JG: No, I was satirising your position. In another post I suggested that this is the epitome of the conservative disposition – people might not have much, but they’re happy in their traditional ways of life. Don’t get me wrong – I’ve nothing against happiness. I just don’t think that it is measurable, comparable over time/culture, susceptible to conscious intervention or a basis for politics. But if happiness really is as important as you imply, then a political program of distributing happy pills makes a lot of sense. Especially if it distracts people from consumption. ^^^^^^^ CB: You are not discriminating enough. JG: I am so. CB: You are letting the bourgeoisie unload a bunch of crap on you. And worse, you are acting as a sort of adman for them, trying to convince others that things have improved so much from the fifties. We are stagnant since the fifties. Things are not better. You are urging people to accept low standards and fake progress. JG: I only wish that the bourgeoisie would unload more stuff on me. Today’s crap is better than yesterday’s, but I hope tomorrow’s will be better. And more people are enjoying more things. Progress, no? Charles, can I ask – what do you do with your own income? Do you own: car, TV, stereo, video, oven, central heating, DVD player, cell phone, computer? ^^^^^ CB: Working class people in the US have very little choice or influence on what consumer goods are available. When I say "thrown at them" I mean in advertisements and the like. JG: The market is a very imperfect way of meeting needs. But you are patronising the working class by suggesting that they’re all dupes who don’t actually need the things that advertisers force upon them. Talk about cultural decline – radical accounts of ideology used to subvert the basis of capitalism by challenging self-serving ideas about hidden hands and formal equality. Now it’s reduced to identifying the wicked cunning of advertisers, and implicitly ridiculing the naivety of the working class. ^^^^^^ CB "By the way, I am not part of "the elite" imposing my views on people of what I think they need." JG: Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure you'll be in line for the commissar for production job after the revolution. CB: Well, somebody from the ranks has got to keep an eye on the communist bankers. JG: Good luck with that. We’re a feisty lot. --James   James Greenstein</body></html>