At 21/01/02 12:32 -0500, you wrote: >Ian M: >What forms of organizing of the 'managerial >class', let alone the larger working class of which they >are a subset, would it take to have them withdraw consent >to the system? > >^^^^^^^^ > >CB: That's one of the $ 64 question, innit ?
The managerial class would have to organize to organize the social functions of the economy, as well as society itself according to a number of apparently abstract social principles that appear to stand above society, and the classes of which society is composed. A prtion of them would then have to start worrying about whether what they do fits in with these abstract principles. This happened this weekend when the usually right wing Daily Mail, supporter of the Conservative Party, usually, suddenly published a picture of the Al Quaida prisoners arriving at Guantanamo, hooded, shackled, masked and kneeling, under the front page headline "Torture"! Sorry to give a political example. Economically the intelligentsia could develop ideas about social responsibility further so that they would object to supermarkets not selling at least some sort of organic range. They could become radically insecure at the instability of the economic system, and impose social controls out of self-defence. cf the clamour after Enron for close monitoring of auditors. In short the intelligentsia could do all these things in response to the question so long as they appeared technical and not primarily motivated by any more radical, revolutionary perspective. That does not however mean that they might not have a progressive contribution in making the boulder start to move, while the multitude get behind it and start to propel it more rapidly. So in answer to the question I am suggesting that the privileged intelligentsia could not consciously withdraw consent to the system, but they might impose drastic reforms through motives of self-defence, in a very reformist way. It is up to others whether they accept the reformist limitation of perspective. Chris Burford London
