On 2010-11-03, at 1:21 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
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> Marv writes:
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> "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 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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> 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.
Students frequently ally themselves to mass movements, but this does not detract from my point above.
> 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.
You're bending the stick back too far. Workers are as much divided by income as by race, gender, and other factors which inhibit the development of solidarity based on a perceived common interest as wage- and salary-earners. Professionals and managers in public and private enterprises have more power and influence and better working conditions than do lower-paid clerical, technical, and blue collar workers, reflected in their relation to both trade unionism and politics.
> The fact that I have a savings account and a retirement account does not make me a capitalist.
Of course not, any more than does owning a home, a car, and other personal assets. But I'm afraid you've missed what this discussion has been about.