Marv writes:
"What you're overlooking, however, is these students a) were not themselves workers, strategically located in factories, offices, mines, and ports with the potential power to shut down parts or all of the economy and
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This is nice received wisdom of the 2d/3d Internationals, and it was always pointless and it is almost laughable to see it still be paraded out by leftists stuck in the 19th-c. In fact this orthodoxy cannot, except through real contortions, make any sense of the Paris Commune, of either of the Russian Revolutions, of France 68 or Czechoslovakia 68. (Marv will also state orthodoxy by telling me that Czechoslovakia was not a capitalist nation. True bu irrelevant.) When working-class members take to the streets it really isn't important where (if anywhere) they are employed. What counts is whtheer the troops will or will not fire upon them. (Back in 1970 Peter Camejo produced a painfully boring speech grounded in this orthodoxcy, entitled "How to Make a Revolution.")
Morever, this orthodoxy leads Marv to unintentional racism! His whole attention is focused on "white students," and he ignores the immense and core inmportance of the black working class from Montgomery on in the '60s Movement of Movements. (NOTA BENE: I am NOT accuising Marv of racism; that would be silly. But non-racist, even vigorous anti-racists, can easily slip into racist arguments. And his argument is racist.)
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b) were transient, lacking any material incentive to organize enduring institutions in their self-interest on campus, defining their self-interest instead as securing well-paid employment on graduation."
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.-------- More false othodox wisdom. Neither mass movements which achieve great (nearly revolutionary) reforms NOR revolutionary movements are moved bvy this sort of mechanical "self-interest."
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Joanna:
The story is more complicated than that: the civil rights movement, in which many students participated, was a movement to broaden the working class to include women, people of color, and the disabled. In essence it was a movement to counter the invidious divisions within the working class, which barred minorities from better paid jobs. This movement was brilliantly subverted by the ruling class into a "me too" quota-based movement which added more divisions: the privileged, the marginally privileged, and the ignored working class.
I agree with Alan that "working class" is not just about how much money you make; the fact that some members of the working class make six figure salaries does not obviate the fact that this thin margin of privilege does not give them one iota of political power.
The fact that I have a savings account and a retirement account does not make me a capitalist.
I read too slowly to tread more than a few posts per day, but as far as I can tell by browsing through parts of it, Joanna's argument below is accurated.
Carrol
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The story is more complicated than that: the civil rights movement, in which many students participated, was a movement to broaden the working class to include women, people of color, and the disabled. In essence it was a movement to counter the invidious divisions within the working class, which barred minorities from better paid jobs. This movement was brilliantly subverted by the ruling class into a "me too" quota-based movement which added more divisions: the privileged, the marginally privileged, and the ignored working class.
I agree with Alan that "working class" is not just about how much money you make; the fact that some members of the working class make six figure salaries does not obviate the fact that this thin margin of privilege does not give them one iota of political power.
The fact that I have a savings account and a retirement account does not make me a capitalist.
Joanna