Carrol quotes Tamás: > Neither value nor labour are perennial qualities of human existence, nor is > class. Class, in contradistinction to ‘caste’, is not a framework for a > whole life or a Lebenswelt. This is why the disappearance of the cultural > identity of the old working class does not change the fundamental character > of capitalism one whit. Class, not being a human group with common > interests and common moral and cultural values such as, say, solidarity and > contrariness, but a structural feature of society, is not an actor. Contra > E.P. Thompson, it is a ‘thing’.58
This is a nice restatement of Marx and Engels' insights on the fluidity of social categories under capitalism compared to prior social formations (cf. Grundrisse). However, we should view it as a trend, not as if today's society already has absolutely fluidity. So I'd adjust Tamás and say that the abolition of alienated labor in all its forms is increasingly a general human problem, rather than the problem of a socially-fixed group of people. But to the extent poverty and therefore alienation remains the social condition of a substantial fixed chunk of the human race (women, darker peoples, people with poor parents, people in poor settings, etc.), I'd say that the abolition of alienated labor is still more their particular problem than the problem of those who in theory may be brought down by competition or bad luck, but that in practice have a tiny chance of doing so. > Class is that feature of capitalist society which divides it along the lines > of people’s respective positions in relation to reification/alienation, > i.e., their degree of autonomy vis-à-vis subordination to commodities and > value. The concomitant differences in wealth, access, etc., could, in > principle, be remedied by redistribution and mutual ‘recognition’. But > greater equality of this kind (which may appear as a utopia right now, but > there are very strong forces pushing towards that utopia which is well > within the realm of possibilities) can achieve better consumption, but not > better ‘production’ – that is, not unalienated labour. Equality, arrived at > through redistribution, does not and cannot preclude domination and > hierarchy – a hierarchy moreover that, unlike in aristocratic systems, does > not build upon a cosmology and a metaphysics that could effect a > reconciliation with reality (and what else is reality than servitude and > dependence?). The notions of "equality" and "redistribution" that Tamás holds may be similar to those most lay people have, but they are not necessary. In general, notions of "equality" and "redistribution" may be predicated on notions of "wealth" and "income," which may or may not be those operationalized under our current statistical categories. In economic theory, for example, the general notion of wealth includes "human" wealth. So, the process of "redistributing" that kind of wealth requires an expansion of educational, health-care, and experiential opportunities not currently available to poor people. Tamás implies that capitalism is infinitely able to reconstitute itself under conditions of relative egalitarianism, provided the conditions of production stay fragmented. The fact is that the fragmentation of the conditions of production is the other side of the coin of a relatively high level of wealth inequality, without which the labor market would be next to inexistent and as a result the rule of capital within the workplace and in society at large would become virtually untenable. As a result, the ability of capitalism to cling to its rule would depend on the general direction of political mass motion. What is the effect of higher standards of consumption? I think that the answer depends -- it depends on what is going on in the social surroundings. Let me be a bit more specific: I believe that the workers' aristocracy story that Engels and then Lenin conceptualized -- whereby higher standards of living translated into political passivity and even consent for imperialism -- held water because of (no wonder) the existence of the colonies, etc. in the following sense: The colonies were the global reserve army of labor that kept domestic workers disciplined and content with their lot. You could be them! De te fabula narratur. Make the wrong move and you can end up there. But that whole story is weakened the more international standards of living converge. Cf. the evolution in the attitude of trade unions to immigrants! > The truth about class is not a proud self-representation through a > legitimizing ethic: this belongs to an era of con?ict between rebellious > universalism (read: egalitarianism) and particularism (read: aristocratism > and the esprit de corps of haughty elites from dukes to abbots). The > dominant ideology of the new, purified capitalism is, naturally, freedom. > Freedom, as conservatives have been pointing out since the late eighteenth > century, means the uprooting of corporate, standesgemäß identities and > replacing them with mobility, ?exibility, elasticity, ease, a propensity to, > and a preference for, change. It is, in appearance, ‘classless’. But it > isn’t. It does not ‘prefer’ the bourgeoisie as a closed, culturally > identifiable, status group (‘estate’); instead it underpins capitalism as a > system. I would say appropriate the word freedom. Yes, freedom means, ultimately, individual freedom. Or nothing. But social fluidity can only afford a false sense of freedom: false sense of freedom for the few at the expense of the slavery of the many. Blast the composition fallacy and find that true and expansive individual freedom can only be generalized through the formation of a society where productive wealth is commonly held rather than fragmented into private fiefdoms. I would also say appropriate the notions of ethics and morality. Grasping alienation is one thing -- it requires that you show or expose the separations. But overcoming alienation in practice requires moving in the opposite direction, to increased human unity, though with a full understanding of the depth of human divisions. The negation of alienation is not the consciousness of alienation, but the appropriation of our social links in practice. Social practice entails a morality -- a different morality than the prevailing one. FWIW.
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
