If modern history is any indicator, it appears that the proletariat is anything but fungible in every respect, from skill level to market/social position, to identity and ideological value systems. That lack of fungibility of proletariat is the chief reason of the dominant position of the capitalist minority.
Thinking of a "universal" (i.e fungible) proletariat as a pre-condition for overthrowing the rule of capital seems to me like putting the cart before the horse. A more realistic view is to emulate existing successful attempts to gain a hegemonic position. Capitalists are a minority but they have dedicated cadres of their "organic intellectuals and politicians" who implement policies favorable to capitalist hegemony and neutralize opposition to those policies. it does not matter whether capitalists are unified or engage in a bitter competition with one another - as long as their "organic" cadres of intellectuals and politicians are successful in maintaining capitalist hegemony.
The same is true for the proletariat. It does not matter whether it is unified or not or what individuals "units" of it thinks is in their best interests - as long as there is a dedicated cadre of "organic" intellectuals and politicians working to implement proletariat hegemony and neutralize any opposition to it. Of course, current conditions are not very favorable for the emergence of such a proletarian vanguard party, let alone its successful operation, bu those conditions will not last forever. And if the right conditions arise, and the proletarian vanguard party manages to establish its hegemony (just as the Bolsheviks did), the masses will follow, just as they follow capitalist hegemony today.
Wojtek
On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 9:06 AM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Wojtek: So what makes things happen, the invisible hand?
>>
>> The question _I_ asked had to do with mass movements, which are the
>> only
>> source of liberatory change? And we know beyond any doubt that such
>> movements start with a VERY minute percentage of the residents, and
>> achieve
>> their results with a small minority. There are no exeptions to this...
>
> Which is why all such movements have failed to achieve their
> liberatory goals and all have either failed to displace old forms of
> oppressive rule or led to the installation of new forms of oppressive
> rule. There are no exceptions to this. Liberatory change will be the
> accomplishment of the overwhelming majority or it will not be.
>
> Shane Mage
>
> ^^^^^^^^
>
> Marx and Engels held the position that the characteristics Shane
> attributes to "Liberatory" change are unique to the Communist
> revolution of all "Liberatory" movements in history.
>
> "All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in
> the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the
> self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the
> interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum
> of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without
> the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into
> the air. "
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007
>
> For capitalism The Proletariat, the great mass, is the Thunderbolt.
>
> "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
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