> Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
>> But having been involved in both campus-based movements and
>> working-class organizations, I can assure you there is a difference,
>> and it
>> does affect your perspective.
>
>
> I'm not sure about this, but I'll put it up anyway: Maybe we're all
> hoping/expecting that old modes of organization will revive
> themselves, like some re-run of the Flint sitdown strike 70 years
> later. But maybe that won't happen. Maybe the social base and
> organizational form of progressive politics has changed, or has to
> change further. We all, consciously or not, seem to treat "working
> class" movements as the gold standard, but maybe that's not quite true
> anymore.
>
These are hard questions that we all have to ask. But it has to be pointed out that in the absence of "working class movements," it's not only the forms of organization that would change but the goals. It may be possible to have progressive social movements without the working class, but they won't be social movements with the goal of radically reducing inequality, for example. If you give up on the working class, you're giving up on certain hallowed desiderata in the process.
Seth