"Two. The reason the working class is the subject of history is not because they're oppressed; it's because they materially create the material world we inhabit." ***********************************
The problem is that most of the working class are not *consciously* the subject of history yet.
This ties in with shaq's remark: "the rejection of the working class as the subject of history began in the 1920s already and was fully realized with the rise of fascism. it was the failure of the working class to fight fascism that led to the search for some other subject of history." ***********************************************************************
The working class in Germany more or less obeyed orders after Hitler took power. Sure, there were honourable exceptions. The working class also obeyed orders in the USSR. Most workers were/are nationalist, not class conscious in their opposition to fascism. By 1921, any hint of a workers' opposition in the Soviet Union was quickly dealt with.
As indicated, a big problem with the development of radical subjectivity has been those who have framed the debate, both on the right and on the left. Socialism has been successfully linked to bureaucratic bungling by the right and with either authoritarian forms of wage-slavery or tepid apologists for the rule of Capital by the left. Common ownership of the collective product of labour, abolition of the wage system, classes and the political State are not discussed, even less, proposed.
As Lukacs pointed out in 1922, reification was endemic. It still is. Then, the social psychological brakes on radical subjectivity were discovered and intellectually developed in the late 20s by Fromm and the Frankfurt School.
What we have today is a liberal left, not a class conscious left-- more or less just what the ruling class ordered, ergo shaq's observation about id pol:
it's the same reasoning that underpins ID politics. you're white, so you can't know shit. they're black and, therefore, they know the truth. (weathermen)
wait, only black women can really know.
no no, it's black lesbians.
no, it's black poor lesbians.
no. it's black poor disabled lesbians.
no. it's blcack poor disabled lesbians in rhodesia.
no. she must also have HIV.
she should also be s transgendered lesbian
and have anorexia nervosa AND social anxiety disorder.
Hi-ho,
Mike B) Wobbly Times http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/