^^^^ CB: The US ruling class is highly unified where it counts: on issues* of fundamental or strategic contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the working class. More specifically, the US ruing class is very effectively unified against changing away from the current electoral system. However, the response on this requires very little action by any ruling class members because there is so little movement to change the status quo. On most important issues of conflict between the classes with the ruling class advantage in the status quo this is the case. Very little active must be done to maintain the status quo. The US ruling class has the world on a string , sitting on a rainbow, got the string tied round its finger.
^^^^^^^^ For that matter, I do not believe that there are "the masses" either (other than an ideological agit-prop construct.)
^^^^ CB: The masses or working class are an objective, not ideological construct. The concept of them is not false consciousness, but its opposite ,none other than , ta da ! working class consciousness, class consciousness The masses really do exist ( lol). They are wage-laborers, employed and the relative surplus population, and petit bourgeoisie. Many in the US call themselves the middle class. They are 90 percent of the population, the People.
^^^^^
Instead, I believe that there are many different groups with fuzzy boundaries and multiple, ambiguously defined interests, groups that sometimes act together and sometimes against each other. Furthermore, there is no one master plan or oven one overall strategy for most of these groups - but at best interim short term goals as seizing opportunities as they emerge.
^^^^^^ CB; Yes the working class masses are not united. They have disdained Marx and Engels' urging to unite. They are a class-in-themselves ( they exist objectively contra your first statement) , but not a class-for-themselves...yet...tick tock,tick tock, tick tock..... they are confused and unclass conscious. We are hoping that the vicious actions of the ruling class will drum dialectics into the heads of the masses.
^^^^^
Some groups are better at setting these interim goals and seizing these opportunities than other - for a variety of reasons.
In short, it is always muddling through, never following a master plan, ideological proclamations and ex post facto rationalizations notwithstanding. Nothing is preordained or predetermined, everything is possible given the circumstances and strategic skills of the players.
^^^^^ CB: Til the final conflict, then let each stand in his place
^^^^^^^
So if you are telling me that the left cannot organize itself into an organized political force capable of pursuing interests of its constituents (which does not mean always winning) - what I see is a bunch of bush league players complaining that they cannot play in a major league because the rules as rigged against them. In a way, they are right - the major league rules require a certain level of skills that pretty much precludes those who do not have them from playing.
^^^^^^^^ CB: I think _you_ are telling _me_ that they are not organized around a master plan that would make them competitive in the class struggle major leagues. Until they get conscious and a plan, they definitely won't change the electoral system in the way you want. Need a master plan to dry up the Atlantic Ocean.
^^^^^^^
PS. There is no capitalism either - only multiple institutional arrangements that vary within- and between- states, arrangements that have some things in common but other things substantially different.
Wojtek
PS There is no chaos either. What on the surface is an apparent random and chance concatenation of events has underlying laws organizing things which we as social and historical scientists, like Marx and Engels, have discovered. See _Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy_ and _Anti-Duhring_ by Engels.