[lbo-talk] Inorganic Intellectuals and the Mythical Ideal of the Marxist Tradition (Re: Moderation)

Tayssir John Gabbour tayssir.john at googlemail.com
Tue Jan 16 18:41:23 PST 2007


On 1/16/07, andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> But this knowledge, so far as it stays
> in the minds of the working class, while potentially
> revolutionary because it is part of the knowledge of
> how to actually run a society without bosses, is quite
> obviously not itself a revolutionary, anticapitalist,
> or even anticorporate consciousness.
>
> So insofar as one looks to the working class as the
> source of knowledge of _radical ideas about society_,
> one will not find it here.

I sometimes wonder about that. Before I learned whatever fancy theory I know, which is fairly recently, I remember how obstinate I was. I remember refusing to take managerial positions, desiring uncompensated work which was under my command, having pride in my work and how I stood up for others, etc.

Well, now I know people who formalize these values into some fancy theory. Much of it's within anarchism. And when I consider the more radical, utopian visions of anarchists, they would've seemed conceptually sane to me then.

Sure, let's have things like corporations, but largely run by the people working in them, with input from others. Sure, let's share the onerous labor of society roughly equally. As long as the movement is entirely honest that experimentation and healthy skepticism is needed, why not?

(Would there be many failures? Well, supposedly 7 out of 10 venture capital funded tech startups fail, 2 do ok, and 1 generates the big returns on investment. And we're not even talking about the more costly and higher-risk gov't research driving the startup system. So yeah, we expect a lot of so-called "failures" for each success.)

Dunno what to say. I don't think I'm abnormal, because sometimes people tell me they like hearing about this stuff. As long as I'm acting as scrupulously honest and civil as I can manage, considering what they say, ready to back up my opinions with evidence from respected sources, and offering info in the spirit of giving them something to think about rather than trying to "convince" like some politician or corporation.

Tayssir



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list