[lbo-talk] "Capitalists" and "the rich"

[andie nachgeborenen]

So we give up on social theory until self-defined
collectivities emerge that act politically? What kind
of radicalism is that? Besides you miss he point, HM
does not start with individual descriptions of the
characteristics of individual people. It starts with a
dynamic theory of class society, identifies social
positions therein, and assigns properties to
individuals in part on the basis of their location in
the theoretically described social position and in
part on the empirical facts about their awareness and
behavior. What's the point of this? Well, how do you
know, for example, that the Democrats are not going to
offer us a route to socialism? Because in a capitalist
society the political parties are effectively
controlled by the capitalist class, to whose interests
they are responsive. Action without theory is blind,
theory without action is empty.

--- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:

> The process of describing people empirically then
> aggregating the result
> into x number of categories seems to be an
> entertaining academic
> pursuit, but I'm not certain what it has to do with
> understanding
> history -- i.e. with grasping the changing relations
> which among
> collectivities within which individuals act. It does
> not, for example,
> tell us a great deal about which sectors of the
> population will enter
> into political activity in a mass way under some
> future set of
> conditions. When such political activity is once
> underway _then_ and
> only then does it become possible to understand (and
> one hopes expand)
> that activity through more concrete analysis of the
> class positions
> those in action occupy. Mere categorization is
> perhaps of interest to
> marketing but is of close to null political or 
> historical interest.
> 
> Carrol
> 
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