[lbo-talk] S&S Call for Papers

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Sun Feb 1 07:07:53 PST 2009


On Sun, 1 Feb 2009 06:35:26 -0800 (PST) Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> writes:
> In Marx and Engel's day, wasn't the working class a minority of the
> population of most capitalist countries? Not really a mass.

Yes, but as Marx also pointed out, the working class was a rapidly growing portion of the population, which would eventually become an outright majority, but which in any case due to its strategic position within the new industrial economy, was already to establish itself as the leader of the masses against the bourgeoisie.

One of the prime examples cited by Marx was France. There, the majority of the population were peasants, but the peasants, by the very nature of the conditions of their existence, could not become a "class-for-itself", as opposed to a "class-in-itself." The same was largely true for the petit bourgeoisie and also for what Marx called the lumpenproletariat. All these other classes and strata were not really capable on their own of leading resistance to the bourgeoisie. Indeed, in periods when the bourgeoisie was strong, these other classes were likely to either passively or actively give their support to the bourgeoisie. It would only be when the proletariat had grown un numbers and strength and self-confidence, that these other classes and strata could be expected to follow the lead of the proletariat rather than the bourgeoisie.

Returning to Marx's example of France, the relative slowness of industrialization there hampered the ability of the proletariat to take this leading position in the nineteenth century. In the upheavals of 1848, the peasants would ultimately give their support to Louis Napolean. And later in 1871, with the creation of the Paris Commune, most of the peasants backed Thiers, who suppressed the Communards with brute force.


>
>
> --- On Sat, 1/31/09, Charles Brown <cdb1003 at prodigy.net> wrote:
> >
> > ^^^^
> > CB: I suppose I could find quotes from Marx
> >
> > and Lenin to demonstrate that
> > the Marxist view places a lot of emphasis on
> > encouraging masses of people, the
> > populace, to take on the bourgeoisie, both
> > industrial and financial oligarchy, in an
> > all around way.
>
>
>
>
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