[lbo-talk] Class

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Tue Jun 19 19:56:21 PDT 2007


Class cannot be defined or explained or recognized by the functions performed by its members, for a class consists not just of functioning adults.

A Class includes infants. It includes retired but active grandfathers. It includes grandmothers in nursing homes. It includes daughters and granddaughters. It includes second cousins existing on handouts from their relatives. It includes unmarried older sisters. In the case of 'ruling' classes past and present it includes a rather large sprinkling of "high-class servants" -- witness the palace servants who became Kings of France; I suspect a slim strata of the professoriate (e.g. a certain Henry Kissinger) should be included under this heading. It includes divorced spouses. Sons-in-Law; Daughters-in-Law. A whole complex tangel of relationships few of which will be immediately visible, and there will be no way by description of formal position (C.E.O., Secretary of State; University President) to identify all or even most of the relations which constitute class power and the exercise of that power. A University President with several daughters and sons-in-law is not the same as a University President unmarried or childless.

Power-elite analysis is a sort of sophisticated and scholarly version of conspiracy theory. In any case it is not class analysis.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list