You describe, categorization, a better and more appropriate term than sectoring, as a matter of grouping empirical elements, whatever these may be, deemed similar in some respect and setting them apart from all other elements deemed dissimilar. How do you do all this deeming? Is it by irrational impressionism, by way a-priori categories embedded in the structure of mind, or by socially learned rational thinking? You recognize that categories are necessary to make sense of experience, and you conclude your first paragraph by describing the aim of categorization as suggesting that is realized through a social rational process, but your subsequent reasoning suggests a vague mix of other cognitive models.
At the end of the second paragraph categorization is described in rational-practical terms as a matter of determining distinctions between experiences, and then testing the existence and the relation of those categories in practical activity, but there is still no description of how the distinctions between categories are determined. The issue is an important one since the way categories are determined is critical to what and how concepts are made.
Marxism, along with Hegelian objective idealism is both inductive and deductive; inducing essence or significance to determine significant categories, proceeding to deduction in determining conceptual relations or ideas. Marxist and Hegelian dialectics (deductive logical process) begins with broad, simple abstractions and proceeds towards more concrete (more specified) conceptualization of relations.
For example, you argue that some categories are too broad to have much predictive power, i.e. class, as if an abstract concept's practical value must be directly evidenced by the most concrete concepts. That's much like writing that the theory of symmetry of the laws of nature must be evident in the leaves of the tree in your front yard, it will never happen. Practical testing of abstractions can only be done in two ways, the highly controlled experiment, or by determining and testing the practical value of concrete concepts derived from the abstract categories. The implementation of the controlled experiment and the testing of concrete categories derived from abstraction must be logical(deductive or inferential), systematic, and practical.
Tests of the validity of a broad abstraction cannot be concrete, and as such, the transformation of abstractions into the kinds of concrete representations of reality necessary for effective, practical activity usually fails, often disastrously. In the recent discussion here on Schelling's Nobel Prize at least one correspondent brought up the terrific failure, practical and otherwise, of the application of game theory to the real conditions of the Vietnam war. Game theory like any abstract theory is reasonable and useful, but only within the limits of its level of abstraction. The attempt by Schelling and MacNamara to use a "scientific" system for winning the war caused terrific suffering for the Vietnamiese people and lost America the war (if it was ever in a position to win). The same critique of the illegitimate uses of abstraction can be said for those bright things that need only read or hear about the categorization of political economic roles into classes and of they go to fight "class war." It doesn't work that way: Classes are differential relations of production, legally and politically represented in laws and politics of property. Anyone who regards the concrete implications of the concept of class (at it's simplest!) should try plowing through all 3 volumes of das Capital. A casual at a more or less comprehensive library for business law is enough to disabuse anyone of the immediate practical utility of class as an abstract category. The use of the concept of class for practical analysis of concrete conditions needs a lot of deduction relative to facts in the field.
If class is so abstract that it has no conceivable practical use, then why have it at all? The theoretical value of class is in its use as: 1. The fundamental concept of the universal link between production and social organization - The material basis of social organization. 2. An abstract representation of the fundamental division of labour that provides the kernel for the rational derivation of more complex systems of organization of production - the political-economic basis of social life 3. The abstract description of the conflict of needs and differential means for their realization of the classes comprising a universal system of production (capitalism of course) - the dialectics of the historical development of the organization of production. The testing of these abstract relations can only be done by examining history in huge chunks or by carrying out highly restricted simulations either with people in structured research environments or on the computer (as in game theory).
Victor
----- Original Message ----- From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 18:53 Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Re: working class?
> This is in reply to various postings in this thread by Charles, Marvin,
> Joanna, Bartlett and Victor inter alia.
>
> Organizing objects or people into classes is a cognitive process of
> grouping
> various empirical elements deemed similar in some respect and setting them
> apart from all other elements deemed dissimilar. This process of
> "sectoring" serves a function of "making sense" of empirical reality i.e.
> organizing it into meaningful categories, reducing uncertainty and
> ambiguity, and facilitating quick processing of information, making
> predictions and decisions in both science and every day life situations.
> Thus, there are always elements of objectivity and subjectivity in the
> concept of a class.
>
> Therefore, the concept of class is theoretically useful only if it is
> based
> on some empirical reality i.e. groups elements that have some objective
> elements of similarity or dissimilarity with non-members, and if it has
> predictive validity i.e. can be useful in telling how the elements will
> behave or how that behavior will be different from that of non-members.
>
> The concept of class based on members' relation to the mans of production
> fails the second part of the aforementioned criterion - it is too broad to
> have any predictive validity. That is to say, knowing a person's relation
> to the means of production (which is the empirical criterion of class
> membership) is vastly insufficient to predict behavior, even narrowly
> defined (e.g. voting). Other predictors are needed. Hence the analytical
> usefulness of the concept is equal to the share of variance it can
> explain -
> in this case close to nil.
>
> The genius of Marx using ownership of the means of production as class
> identifier was its empirical clarity at the moment and also its political
> appeal - but that identifier was not the cause of what created the working
> class. If anything it was an effect. The working class was created by
> rural feudalism (as Barrington Moore and Co. convincingly argue) - which
> is
> to say that the class of landless and skill-less masses has its origins in
> the feudal or more generally rural relations of production. These masses
> and their social-behavioral characteristics - especially rural solidarity
> that was critical for creating the sense of social cohesion that made
> collective action, unionism etc, possible - were merely transferred from
> the
> country side to the cities and funneled into the lowest rungs of
> industrial
> production: the property-less labor.
>
> This is why despite its political and empirical expedience at the time,
> the
> concept of class defined the ownership of the means of production, lost is
> usefulness as industrialism transformed social relations and social
> organization.
>
> Today, political activists may see some usefulness in lumping together
> people of different walks of life into "working class" - but that effort
> fails on both criteria of class making - empirical reality test - there is
> too much dissimilarity among the elements/members for anyone to seriously
> believe that they form a coherent class, and the predictive validity of
> such
> a concept is close to nil. It is a futile search of the past that never
> existed - memories of one's childhood, community, the Main Street and good
> old times in general.
>
> Then there is another issue of social inequality - as observed by Bartlett
> and others. It is an undeniable empirical fact, all right, but what do we
> gain when we call it in any particular way reminiscent of the old battle
> cries of the past. If that reviving of old battle cries was performed by
> the industrial avant-garde transforming the society and using the old
> battles to gain popular following (as the old man explained in the _18th
> brumaire_ ) - that would make sense. But if it is performed by the
> rear-guard fulminating over its loss of any influence and status - this is
> nothing but useless and ridiculous kvetching.
>
> If the left is going to offer any convincing explanation of the currently
> existing inequalities, it must provide one that is based on fact rather
> than
> wishful thinking, and one that is useful, which includes inter alia being
> convincing to the middle class and mental workers - whose support is
> essential for any political victory.
>
> I have a feeling, however, that many upper class radicals embrace
> "workerism" for reasons similar to those why some members of British
> nobility embraced communism - to enhance its own status. The nobility was
> threatened in its status by the ascending bourgeoisie thatw as also the
> dominant economic force. Thus conspicuous displays of wealth became
> noveau
> riche and parvenu. Therefore, the upper classmen had come with other
> class
> markers, one that bourgeoisie would be unlikely to embrace. One such
> status
> is the embracement of the social freaks against which the middle class
> defines its status - workers, criminals, prostitutes and sundry derelicts.
> Since the middle class defined its status by setting themselves against
> these derelicts - the upper class would define its status by embracing
> them,
> especially that there was danger of any confusion of being actually one of
> them.
>
> In the same way, the US upper class radicals, eager to differentiate
> themselves from their bourgeois roots - embrace "workerism," gutter
> populism, and freak-fetishism to underscore their status difference. I
> would not find surprising - this is the way social status is created,
> after
> all - except that these radicals claim to reject the notion of status and
> status-based social differences.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
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