On 05/10/2013, at 10:42 PM, Wojtek S <wsoko52 at gmail.com> wrote:
> In short, the connection between working class and collective security
> arrangements is at best dubious, if existing at all. The question is why,
> because on the surface such collective welfare security arrangements are in
> the material interests of the working class. Of course, the significance
> of it for the US is quite obvious - it raises the question why would a
> significant proportion of the 99 percent who would materially benefit from
> collective welfare arrangements actively oppose such arrangements (the What
> is the Matter with Kansas thing).
Did it occur to you to question the premise that the welfare state is actually in the interests of the working class? All your arguments up to this point seem to indicate that this is a question that needs to be answered.
I have seen it suggested that one of the main factors leading to the development of the welfare state is the failure of what preceded it - private and particularly church charity, what was termed poor relief. And I don't just mean that this kind of charity failed just in terms of actually meeting the needs of the poor. (That pretty much goes without saying.) The real problem that prompted the state (European states that is) to move to take over this function, was that church welfare failed to keep a lid on social unrest.
The new capitalist class in the towns and cities of Europe was decidedly dissatisfied with the church welfare agencies incompetence which led to all kinds of peasant uprisings in the early days leading to capitalism. The argument goes that this led to the state taking a predominant role in provision of so-called poor relief. I used to study all this stuff years ago, but have forgotten more than I remember to tell the truth.
Anyway, the point about places like Australia and the USA is that we only share that social history in a kind of inherited second-hand way. Not exactly true, but our recent history provided a slightly different social context for class composition.
The thing is that the welfare state is purposefully designed to keep the poor from starving, but in the most humiliating way practical. Its function is to keep public order. But it has always been charged with distinguishing the "deserving" from the "undeserving" poor, exactly in accordance with the Protestant (read: capitalist) work ethic. So it is hardly surprising that, as you put it, "the push toward collective security arrangement primarily came not from the working class but from the professionals and government administration". Should it really surprise us that the working class are not champions of the work-house? Or that it is professionals who enjoy comfortable salaries to police the poor that are the main champions of the system?
The working class is guilty of plenty of false consciousness, but the dread memory of the work-house is alive and well in our class memory.
As for defining class in a more precise way, I have done this for you. Level of education doesn't enter into it. Neither does cultural background. Now as to "petit bourgeoisie" - this is French for small capitalist. So it is just a subcategory of capitalist, no mystery there. There are only 2 real classes in our society, working class and capitalist class. The middle class that the old writers speak of was the capitalist class in the old feudal order, before it overthrew the previous ruling aristocratic class, abolished it and replaced it as ruling class. There is a lot of confusion on this question, I hope I have cleared it up for you.
>
> The second issue is how class interests are defined. The simplistic - and
> false - answer is that every individual knows his/her best interests and
> those interests are aggregated to a collective level by some spontaneous
> process.
I agree, that's a false answer, because it is trying to define class subjectively. That way lies madness.
> My own thinking goes in a different direction again - class interests do
> not emerge from below but are rather imposed from above, by a vanguard
> party if you will. However, there are many cliques vying for the status
> of the vanguard party, and the question is which one of them actually
> becomes one. My hypothetical answer to this question is the clique that
> faces the least resistance and opposition - which is consistent with
> institutional theories organizational behavior. In other words - the
> clique that expresses views that look most in line with what is consistent
> with the "stock knowledge" or a set of beliefs and value taken for granted
> by members of a given collective - be it organization or nascent
> socio-economic class becomes its vanguard party that defines the class
> interests and class itself.
I'm afraid I can't follow the above. Perhaps you have succumbed to the "madness" I warned of re trying to define class subjectively?
>
> I sum, socio-economic class is defined not by some objective
> characteristics of its members but by the vanguard party being followed by
> members of that class.
Yes, it looks more and more like it.
> That is to say, social classes are social spaces
> created by various cliques vying to the status of the vanguard party that
> attract different followers.
No no! Class consciousness is subjective and thus amenable to social debate. Actual objective class status is a more stubborn thing, in the sense that it is a fact.
> This is pretty much like sports team and
> their fans - the you will build they will come thing. People may like
> sports in general, but that does not translate into liking football, soccer
> or baseball, let alone following a particular team. The reverse is true -
> sports teams create particular sports and niches within those sports which
> gradually attract followers.
But it doesn't matter how much you might like it to be the case, if your team loses, they lose. That's a fact. You (and most others) might still prefer them to the winning team, but that doesn't make them the winning team, because sport is not a popularity context, you have to win the game. Get it?
> In the same fashion, tea party followers are
> a class because the "vanguard" tea party defines them as class and they
> consider that claim to be legitimate. In sum vanguard parties create
> social classes and define their interests, rather than being expressions of
> some "objectively" existing social classes and "objectively" defined
> interests. Anyone can belong to that class regardless of occupation,
> relations to the means of production, cultural background, gender,
> ethnicity etc. There may be correlations between these characteristics and
> membership in different classes, but they just that - correlations not
> causes or defining factors.
No, you are talking nonsense here, utter nonsense. Apples and oranges, the social class you imagine is a purely political creature. Actual economic class status is a concrete thing. If you own the means of production You own something objectively real. If you don't, no amount of wishful thinking changes that. The capitalist and working class exist independently of any subjective political consciousness.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas