Blair, thanks for your thoughtful response. I'm not sure what we are doing here but I agree with most of what you say. Although I think I'm going to stick with the notion that class EXPLAINS a far broader range of social phenomena than other social factors and social forces. I think Marx called class/labor the concrete universal. No? Shawgi Tell University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Tue, 9 Jan 1996, Blair Sandler wrote: > Re: OVERDETERMINATION: A Petty Bourgeois Speculation? > > I would like to pick up on a thread from the end of last year. I don't > think I ever sent this message, and then I got hit by the Economics > Convention, board meetings, job interviews, and the like. So in case anyone > is still interested.... > > Shawgi Tell writes: > > I wonder if we are confusing terms such as "an all-sided analysis" with > "overdetermination?" In education, for example, "overdetermination" is > used precisely in the sense I described. In fact, neologisms such as > "parallelist framework" have emerged. Blair, I understand everything you > are saying below. I respectfully disagree. I know numerous factors > "determine" a concrete phenomena, but in order to not lapse into > pluralistic and anti-dialectical materialist analyses, it is important to > realize that not all "determinants" exercise equal influence. In the > social sphere, for example, it is known that class, race, gender, > nationality, religion, language, etc... all influence, condition or > determine phenomena. But, clearly, social class explains a far broader > range of phenomena than any of these other factors. To argue otherwise > is to agree with Daniel Moynihan, Nathan Glazer, Seymour Martin Lipset, > Robert Dahl, Henry Kissinger, Daniel Bell and several thousand other > bourgeois lackeys. All these imperialist yes-men would have us believe > that class is, at best, one factor, one determinant. Shit, Moynihan > won't even grant that. > > > And I respond: > > So when Marx said that "the concrete is concrete because it is the > concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse" > (GRUNDRISSE, Vintage Press, p. 101), he was lapsing into "pluralistic and > anti-dialectical materialist analyses?" I don't think so. > > You seem to have missed something important in one of my previous posts, > Shawgi. I explicitly said one cannot speak of multiple determinants > exercising "equal influence." More to the point, when you say arguing that > social class does not explain a broader range of phenomena than other > factors is to agree with all those bougeois lackeys, I have to think that > you fail to understand the explicitly Marxian notion of class. For none of > those lackeys even understands the Marxist concept of class as production, > appropriation, and distribution of surplus labor. For all of them, "social > class" is about income and status. I don't think it is necessary for > Marxists to be economic determinist and economistic in order to > differentiate ourselves from bourgeois theory (in fact, I think economic > determinism and economism is anti-Marxist). It is the specific concept of > class (absent in all other theories) that makes Marxism unique, and not > whether "class" in general (as if there were such a thing) is determinant > in the last instance or simply one among numerous "equal" determinants. > > My point is it is not possible to rank determinants, as if they were all > commensurable. Class (surplus labor production and distribution), gender, > race, and so on, each has its own, particular, specific, unique > effectivity. The meaning of overdetermination is precisely to produce an > all-sided analysis of just the specific effectivity of each such social > process in any particular historical conjuncture. > > This is the importance of class: no other process or combination of > processes can produce just the effects of class on the social totality. > Therefore, an analysis that fails to "see" class (surplus labor production > and distribution) will necessarily, first, be different than one that takes > class explicitly into account, and, second, be unable to propose solutions > to the problems resulting from the specific difference of class that will > address the effectivity of class. And in precisely this way we can say that > class-less analyses will fail to solve class problems. > > The special responsibility of Marxists then is not to insist that class > explains everything, or even "a far broader range of phenomena" than any > other factor, for class *by itself* (like every other concept) explains > nothing. Rather, our obligation is to insist that class has its own, unique > effectivity, that exploitation is a form of social injustice, and that > social justice will therefore be diminished, weakened, difficult, or > impossible, without explicit and specific attention to class processes. > Contra your assertion, *none* of the bourgeois lackeys you named would > agree with this underestanding of the importance of class. > > Respectfully, > > Blair Sandler > > >
