To repeat, the dialectic of capital-wage labor is indeed what makes capitalism what it is, and it is therefore the primary contradiction at the level of theory, but that theory does not imply that people can or must organize themselves in practice along the line of the primary contradiction which is an abstraction.
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MB:
Theory is based on material reality. Wage labor is a material reality. It is not just a conceptual abstraction, as say, a matter of faith is.
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Yoshie:
In reality, all social movements under capitalism -- including successful revolutionary ones -- have been cross-class movements, with more or less eclectic sources of influence (from religion to feminism), and they always will be and should be. Theoretical tools developed in the Marxist tradition can merely help us understand and participate in social movements better than without them. In short, the tools are not meant for purifying cross-class movements into a movement of, by, and for "the proletariat" in the abstract.
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MB:
But, eclectism is not socialist praxis. It's more rooted in the politics of confused/confusing liberalism, pragmatism and Machiavellian manipulation of the "masses".
As Marx and Engels advocated in the Manifesto of the Communist Party:
'The communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can only be attained by the forcible overthrow of the existing social order. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Proletarians of all lands, unite!'
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I think they were spot on. IMHO, you should say--be upfront about-- what you're for, which doesn't mean you can't be against the occupation of Iraq or a hundred other matters which involve oppressive behaviours within class society.
Wobbly greetings,
Mike B)
Watch the communist manifestoon! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oGIffyVVk
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