[lbo-talk] Sam Gindin, ON THE REVIVAL OF THE WORKING CLASS

Ted Winslow egwinslow at rogers.com
Wed Dec 16 10:45:17 PST 2009


Doug Henwood wrote:


> The material reason for that primacy is that this working class produces profits for the bosses and the necessities for social reproduction.

This is also true of peasants in their societies. The key isn't the existence of this "material reason"; it's the consistency of the conditions of individuals with those required for the development of the required degree of rational self-consciousness (something different from the usual idea of "consciousness").

Marx's account of what's required is mistaken.

Psychoanalysis, for instance, points to requirements for this development that Marx's account (whether in the case of the conditions of wage-labour or of those in the Russian peasant commune) ignores and that are consistent with the widespread persistence and immunity to rational critique of mistaken ideas about religion, immigrants, single payer health care, socialism, etc.

Ted



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