And hence the label for anti-working class ideology, and ideology so powerful it infiltrates and weakens the working class, the ideology of the petty bourgeoisie.
Carroil
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of shag carpet bomb Sent: Saturday, November 09, 2013 1:11 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] A short soliloquy on freedom and fishing
out of curiosity, did it ever explain anything?
I can't, at the moment, remember what it was supposed to designate other than epithet as in, "you're just a petty bourg individual," which generally means objectively anti-Marxist (or something like that).
At 03:11 PM 11/8/2013, Carrol Cox wrote:
>Marv G: "Andie may be playfully self-deprecating, and the phrase may
>still have some polemical utility as an epithet, but does the
>characterisation of today's intellectuals as "petty bourgeois" retain any
explanatory power? "
>
>Probably not -- but have you encountered many libertarians? Some years
>ago (for posture improvement) I begin once a week to take training in
>the Alexander method. My trainer also gives guitar lessons (he has an
>MA in musicology from the U of Michigan.) He's right out of the
>textbook. He sees the world as made up of totally independent
>individuals , and while he is a nice guy, he also it seems to me has a
>mean streak somewhere at the center of his person, & it comes precisely
>from "petty bourgeiois" status in the 'pure' sense: an independent petty
producer. I never 'debate' him directly.
>I did once get him to note that the 'customers' that make it pay for
>him to drive over from Urbana once a week _all_ depend on state
>pensions. I think 'pure' case such as this are useful in exploring the
basis of "petty-b"
>ideology in less 'pure' categories.
>
>But I would agree never to use the phrase except in special contexts
>such as the present. It is apt to be toxic.
>
>Carrol
>
>
>
>
>Most are university graduates who come from white and blue collar families.
>They're no longer predominantly self-employed or living on family
>allowances or landed and business profits as was common in the 19th
>century. For the most part, they're salaried professional and technical
>employees, the newest and fastest growing layer of the working class.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org
>[mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org]
>On Behalf Of Marv Gandall
>Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 10:18 AM
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] A short soliloquy on freedom and fishing
>
>
>On 2013-11-08, at 9:52 AM, andie_nachgeborenen
><andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Great story. I have to confess I don't like fishing either, but I
> > never
>pretended to be anything but a petit bourgeois intellectual. Even if I
>spend the rest of my working life stacking boxes at Target, that's what I'd
be.
>
>Andie may be playfully self-deprecating, and the phrase may still have
>some polemical utility as an epithet, but does the characterisation of
>today's intellectuals as "petty bourgeois" retain any explanatory power?
>
>Most are university graduates who come from white and blue collar families.
>They're no longer predominantly self-employed or living on family
>allowances or landed and business profits as was common in the 19th
>century. For the most part, they're salaried professional and technical
>employees, the newest and fastest growing layer of the working class.
>
>Their class location may have shifted, but some would still argue that
>the political consciousness of intellectuals (broadly understood) is
>petty bourgeois. Like farmers, artisans, and other small property
>holders before them, they're generally accepting of capitalism with a
>bias towards redistributive reforms and against the rule of Big Capital and
the wealthy.
>Andie goes so far as to suggest that this would still be the case even
>were he to succumb to the temptation to leave lawyering in favour of
>stacking boxes at Target.
>
>But isn't this true of of the working class as a whole? It's political
>consciousness can no longer be described as "proletarian", when large
>numbers of workers saw themselves as having distinct interests and
>socialist objectives fundamentally opposed to the ruling class. This
>anti-capitalist constituency is now pretty much confined to a small
>minority of leftish academics and other dissenting intellectuals and
>students, which brings us back to the question of how to describe the
>class location and political character of the particular social layer to
which most of us belong.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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