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

[Bill Bartlett]

At 11:59 AM -0500 6/6/07, Carrol Cox 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.

This sort of disdain for trying to understand class would explain why 
the modern union movement is in the pickle it is these days. You 
can't build a house of stone on a foundation of sand so it pays to 
try to understand the geology of your site *before* you lay the 
foundations.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas