Wojtek:
> I think that you exaggerate the
> freedom from popular pressure the elites faced in the past - in fact they
> lived in the shadow of the guillotine since the French Revolution, not to
> mention Comrade Mauser during the Russian revolution...the elite gained
> unprecedented technological
> and organizational advances - communications, marketing, surveillance,
> media
> blitz, technology of war, scientific understanding of human behavior -
> they
> have it all, while the non-elites still go by popular stock-knowledge..
--------------------------------
It's true that the elites could lose their heads in the past - the sharpest
expression, forgive the pun, of "public pressure". But apart from riots and
revolutions, which were irregular occurences, the masses had much less
opportunity than they do now to apply consistent pressure on the ruling
classes concerning the production and distribution of the surplus. They only
acquired this capacity when they fought and won the right to organize in
both the industrial and political arenas. The former allowed them to improve
their living standards and working conditions; the latter gave them the
further means to redistribute income through more favourable tax and
spending policies. Although there was much Sunday speechifying by labour and
social democratic leaders about "socialism", and the Marxist left genuinely
tried to place the overthrow of capitalism at the forefront, the great class
battles in the advanced capitalist countries were mostly at bottom about
winning these two fundamental democratic rights - to unionize and to vote.
Their acquisition subsequently laid the basis for the modern welfare state.
It's almost commonplace on the left these days to ignore these gains or dismiss them as trivial or even to see them as the cause of the working class' historic reluctance to advance to state power and socialism. But working people have never experienced these reforms as insignificant - even today, long after the battles have been fought - as every public opinion poll and effort to erode them indicates. If there were a serious attempt at the wholesale elimination of political and trade union rights and social benefits, it's likely that you'd see a corresponding deepening of popular protest which would require strong measures to surpress. So far we haven't reached that stage, and the Bush administration shows no intention of testing this proposition.
It's curious that you share the same view of the modern working class as largely backward, corrupted, inert, and incapable of defending its interests as does that part of the disappointed left you decry as "utopian". You're frequently insightful and a good sounding board for myself and others on the list, Woj, but have you considered that your consistent dystopianism might be an inverted form of utopianism?