Russell,
I was pointing out that there was an appear ance and a political
practice which points to an underlying economic basis, which I felt
was in need of investigation, when looking at the make up of
proletariat. I did not say that a home, a car and some saving made
someone wealthy but that there was a stage at which some workers did
have excessive priviledges above and beyond the necessities for
living, travel and consumption. In fact if you look closely I made it
absolutely clear that even these priviledge people were still part
of the working class and I stressed that the peti-Bourgeois was a
seperate class outside the working class which is economically
constituted on the basis, not of their income level, but by the fact
that they owned the means of production. I was raising a problem with
the view that the working class was a unified whole making up 99%
of the world's population (without racism, sexism, homophobia ...).
As this did not help us answer the question - which matters most to
me - as to why this massive unified class has not managed to break
its economic chains? What does it have to lose?
For me the only point to knowing what constitutes the working class,
other than sociological investigation, is to know how the class
struggle will proceed. What is likely to restrain it, and what is
likely to take it forward. To not analyse this problem leaves one to
supporting anything contains the working class (such as the Labour
Party, the Democrats, police and prison officer unions....). One only
need read Engels desparate letters to Marx on the inability of the
British working class (especially the craft unions) to do (or
think) anything beyond the interests of British imperialism. And it
leaves many on the left to just blame the lack of revolutionary vigor
on the leadership (often democratically elected) which some-how
hood-winks the rank-and-file away from there true historical role
based on their economic conditions.
I agree entirely that 'what needs to be comprehended is the real
dynamic- how the relatively privileged gain their 'rewards', how they
are exploited, whether their gains are at the expense of less well
off workers within their nation state, or whether both gain from the
wider exploitation of the third world etc.' I was just warning that
few people have attempted such a detailed investigation.
Yours,
John
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