[lbo-talk] A Note on the Middle 75%

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Fri Nov 18 09:25:17 PST 2011


There was a fuss made over this a week or so ago. It is true that the middle 75% make the revolution (or the mass movement that substantially changes the present). It is NOT true that therefore the central slogans of the Movement focus on the "interests" of this group. For example, there are few better slogans with which to reach those of the 75% (who can be reached) than Abolish the Prison System. The Middle 75% yawn at their own interests; substantial numbers of them can become outraged a injustice and the immiseration and/or oppression of others.

For Marxists there is of course a contradiction here. We see capitalism as history, not as evil. Yet most who join the struggle do so out of rage at injustice ("evil"). But it is only a nominal contradiction. Most of those who make a revolution are not revolutionaries. Most revolutionaries are not Marxists. Marxism (as differentiated from the personal thinking of Marx) is the analysis of an abstract capitalism, and it is in analysis that it is crucial to put aside all moralism, all appeals to some founationless Good. (See Ollman, et al). The moral outrage against injustice which rallies millions to the cause of the oppressed remains a simple historical fact, not requiring "philosophical justification."

In any case, it is crucial to see that that 'middle 75%' will rally to the cause of the oppressed or to the outrage of social corruption (and prisons are part of that social corruption) far more vigorously than they will rally to their own directly stated "interests."

And of course this is another reason for a left in action to ignore the tears of those who want it to have "demands" that stem from abstract policy analysis rather than on what enrages people.

Carrol



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