I was going to sign off for a week or so with my previous post but since I will be spending Christmas north of the border in the murder triangle pondering the overdetermination of religion and nationality on working class consciousness I thought I might reply to Steve C. (Hi! welcome to Pen-L). Steve sez >The problem is that the members of any putative definition of the working >class are always heterogeneous with respect ot interests, calculations, and >strategies. And, unless one wants to assert a very strong form of >economism, these interests cannot be reduced simply to class concerns (as >gender, race, ethnicity, religion, age, geography, etc., always enter >irreducibly into the picture). But even if one could, that wouldn't solve >the problem of "working class" as political subject, as an actor capable of >calculation and action. >... >What we have are various organizations, like trade unions and political >parties, who are subjects/actors/agents and at times claim to "represent" >the interests of the working class. Even those with only a passing >familiarity with postmodernism will recognize the problems associated with >claims of representation (authenticity, false consciousness, ets.) ... >I think we should discard the idea of representation of some deeper >interests (such as the working class) and recognize that there are >organizations (actors) which have effects on productive laborers, wage >laborers, etc., in multiple and contradictory ways. The modes of >calculation, strategies and tactics of these organizations are not >pregiven, but emerge in the very process of struggle. They are what they >are, and are nothing deeper or more authentic. This illustrates the problem with trying to conceive of historical materialism in terms of agency theory. Because of the endless play of differences class is not a meaningful category, only concretely constituted organizations. But are not organizations riven as well by the endless play of differences so we can only really speak of factions within these organizations. But then again these factions are riven with differences so we can really only speak of collections of individuals. But because individuals are decentered we can only meaningfully speak of contradictory identities constituted around things like gender, nation, class, etc. But because of the endless play of diffences, categories like class are not meaningful... etc. Thus pomo disappears up its own ass. Terry McDonough
