Wojtek writes:
>
> [WS:] No doubt about the "romantic" allure of the myth of rural society
> to hippies, anarchists, third worldists etc. This is, in essence, utopian
> socialism. But my question is why such a backward looking utopia has so
> much attraction to people who claim Karl Marx in their ideological
> ancestry. Why not forward looking utopia promoted by Marx?
The Western working class did not prove to revolutionary as Marx forecast, and came to be mostly seen as hopelessly corrupted and bribed by imperialism. On the other hand, Third World peasant movements resisted imperialism and in some cases overthrew capitalism. So Western leftists, dismayed by their own workers, turned hopefully and by default to the Third World and the peasantry as the main agents of social change within national boundries and globally. In the course of doing so and as could be expected, they developed a more positive view of peasant societies, notably of their revolutionary potential, than did the early Marxists, who did not assign the petty producers any independent role in the world-historic clash between the big bourgeoisie and rapidly expanding industrial proletariat.
The replacement of class by gender and ethnicity as the focal point of social analysis at home was similarly based on a progressive disillusionment with the politically tepid Western working class movement and a new respect for those also formerly considered to be it's subordinate allies - insurgent movements of students, women, national minorities, etc.
>[WJ:]> Or to phrase it differently, idyllic rustic utopias used to be a
> playground for aristocracy, cf. Marie Antoinette's peasant village near
> Versailles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_hameau . I can see certain
> emotional gratification to the parasitic rich flowing from such role
> reversal game i.e. pretense of engaging in productive work. But what does
> this utopia offers the self-styled defenders of the working class...
Intellectuals from privileged backgrounds have sometimes affected muscular working class lifestyles, including identification with working class political parties and unions and utopias, as a repudiation of their class origins and to distinguish themselves from other intellectuals whom US society, in particular, generally regards as effete and bourgeois. Remember all the would-be Che Guevaras on university campuses in the 60's sporting bushy beards and long hair and army surplus clothing and would-be Lenins and Trotskys with their rimless glasses and goatees? If such harmless role-playing contributed to the protest movements against the war in Vietnam and for civil rights and women's and gay liberation, it would be wrong to compare it to Marie Antoinette's faux peasant villages.