[lbo-talk] Slavoj Žižek . The Revolt of the Salaried Bourgeoisie: The New Proletariat

Wojtek S wsoko52 at gmail.com
Thu Jan 26 12:11:01 PST 2012


Somebody: "workers and the poor bristle so easily at attempts at organizing "

[WS:] I am not sure it is true. It depends who is doing organizing and how. It is hardly surprising that underclasses of the world are suspicious of high status outsiders telling them what to do, including well meaning college kids. Organizing is not something engineered from above, but an organic process grounded in social solidarity that develops in the whole way of life. Of course, this organic process is manipulated by leaders, but it is not created out of thin air. Where there is no solidarity, there is no effective organizing.

In other words, you cannot parachute an organizer to, say, some remote

African village to tell the peasants what to think and do. You need the local guys who are trusted by the peasants and who can use existing social solidarity networks (e.g. harambe in East Africa) to mobilize them. The Brits perfected that in their indirect colonial rule.

The success of "bourgeois organizing" that you mention, especially that on the left, stood on the back of peasant solidarity in Europe and Latin America. With that solidarity mostly gone, especially in Europe, left organizing went south.

Wojtek



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