<div>On 4/20/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <<a href="mailto:sokol@jhu.edu">sokol@jhu.edu</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I am reasonably sure that if it were possible to get rid of class contradictions, it would be accomplished somewhere.  If we somehow managed to get rid of class divisions defined by capitalist property relations, new ones would emerge. The fact that there are no human societies without internal class divisions (however defined) speaks volumes.  If getting rid of such divisions were possible, such society would exist.</blockquote><div> Woj, I have been meaning to reply to your thoughtful post about "What can be done?" but I have been on jury duty.  But I can't let this go by.  I am not sure why you make such statements as  in your second paragraph! It might be proper to say that there is no human societies without "hierarchy" of some kind, or that there are no human societies in which a state exists that didn't have class divisions, but to make a statement such as " there are no human societies without internal class divisions (however defined)" is ignoring probably most of human history.  Consider: humans emerged as a separate species as hunter-gatherers.  After a long existence in this condition, agriculture developed and spread in various places.  Practically, all hunter-gatherer societies are quite egalitarian, almost to the point of "group-tyranny".  Among hunter-gatherers, with very few exceptions, there is a forced equality of food division, for example, and asserting too much dominance usually leads to exile.  There is no reason to believe that from the time of human emergence to the time of the agricultural revolution that hunter-gatherer societies were much different.  (They may have been, but what-ever intelligent guesses we can make, point in the other direction.)  It is simply historically wrong to make the kind of statement that you make unless you qualify it with " since the agricultural revolution there are no human societies without internal class divisions (however defined)."  But even this may not be true, depending upon how you analyze isolated agricultural societies that rely on subsistence farming and have no external pressures.  This is not to idealize hunter-gatherers or subsistence farming.  It is only to point out that when you take a longer view of human history (and biological history) some of the things you say don't make sense.  It is possible that a participatory and democratic political-economy that will eliminate class divisions based on modern forms of ownership will not be practical, or that it will only lead to new forms of class divisions.  But I think that a good argument can be made that we have already surpassed traditional capitalist property forms and are in an age of corporate sovereignty and property.  The real question is, can we find a way to democratize these massive private business-state institutions we call corporations?  That is of course a long-run question.  In the short run, like you, I would settle for a good social democracy. Jerry </div> </div>