[lbo-talk] Zizek: "Where to look for revolutionary potential?"

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Mar 17 10:27:57 PDT 2007


On Mar 16, 2007, at 10:15 PM, B. wrote:


> It is effectively surprising how
> many features of slum dwellers fit the good old Marxist determination
> of the proletarian revolutionary subject: they are “free” in the
> double
> meaning of the word even more than the classic proletariat (“freed”
> from all substantial ties, dwelling in a free space, outside the
> police
> regulations of the state); and they are a large collective, forcibly
> thrown together, “thrown” into a situation where they have to invent
> some mode of being-together, and simultaneously deprived of any
> support
> in traditional ways of life, in inherited religious or ethnic
> life-forms.

Yeah, except the proles are the motor of the capitalist system; without their labor, the whole thing would collapse. Without the slum dwellers, what?

Doug



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