[lbo-talk] in which I'm accused of repressing the reptilian brain

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at aapt.net.au
Wed May 14 15:59:40 PDT 2008


At 11:47 AM -0500 14/5/08, Carrol Cox wrote:


>-- I suspect "working-class" is a category utterly
>useless except during particular peirods of working-class militancy.
>When those periods end, workers cease to be workers and become merely
>residents of a territory.

This is true to the extent that most people here have an entirely illogical definition of working class. Which is logical in itself, why else would so much trouble be taken to create confusion about what constitutes working class under capitalism?

But the way you analyse it is creates a chicken and egg problem. How to sustain, or even identify working class militancy without a prior definition of what working class is to begin with?

Of course without a definition of working class, you can't even begin to organise working class institutions like unions. You want to create a union like the IWW, you need to be able to determine who is entitled to be a member. I know the actually existing IWW still hasn't solved that problem after 100 years, because of course its members are primarily Americans who have strange ideas of what working class actually means.

Or, in some cases they even think like you, that it is irrelevant. Obviously, that's no way to create a union. In practical terms such a failure leads to what is essentially a political party where eligibility for membership is according to the political beliefs of the existing members.

There has to be some eligibility of course, or employers could join. But if you want to restrict membership to the working class you have to have a definition of working class.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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