At 02:36 PM 11/9/2013, Carrol Cox wrote:
>It might be interesting to trace down the earliest, or at least earlier,
>appearances of the phrase. My assumption is that there really is no such
>thing as "(big) bourgeois ideology" but there certainly is a very potent
>ideology supporting capitalist relations. The ideology of the "big
>bourgeois," then, is generated _outside_ that class but supportive of. That
>ideology's central principles are: (a) society does not exist, there are
>only individuals and families; (b) ethical principles of individuals form
>action ["Evil be thou my good"]; (c) those principles are the results of a
>fundamental "human nature." So then the question arises, what is the
>material basis of this fundamental ideology which undergirds all thought and
>feeling in capitalist societies? The answer is obvious: petty producers &
>small capitalists, for two reasons: (1) This is how the petty producer
>(physician, lawyer, small shopkeeper, independent artisan, etc.) experiences
>the world: as a set of direct relations among "abstract -- isolated --
>individuals" who _seem_ to act according to various abstract principles:
>Greed, fear, holiness, altruism, lust, etc etc etc. (2) Intellectuals come
>not from either the big capitalists _or_ workers but from among this 'class'
>of petty producers.
>
>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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>
>--
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>
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