Mike Ballard wrote:
>
> Angelus wrote:
>
> Well, as I've stated before, I have a problem with
> communists relating uncritically and positively to the
> category of the "working class" to begin with. A
> revolutionary reconstruction of society would involve
> the abolition of the working class, not its
> emancipation.
>
> ********************
>
> The abolition of the wages system would be both an emancipation from wage
> labour and Capital and and the end of class rule. The working class would
> become a free association of producers.
Wait a minute. Angel raises (in radically condensed form but still clearly) a major challenge to the Marxist tradition (but not necessarily to Marx himself), and you blow it off with repetition of a slogan. Angel may be wrong, but the claim should be taken seriously if it is to be responded to at all.
There are important strategic and tactical questions, as well as questions of basic theory, raised here that are worth exploring. One problem of automatic (or uncritical) use of the category "working class" is that it tends to become an identity rather than a relation, and this in turn narrows one's conception of who the workers are. (E.g., consider all the silly invocations of "middle class" on this list.) And there is endless discussion, much intelligent and even more sort of idiotic of how struggles over gender, 'race,' educational strata, etc. relate to "working-class struggle." And so on.
Carrol