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[Brainaddict]

Not really, cos class is essentially economic cos we aren't talking about anyone's



we are talking about their economic and social interests.

Class politics shouldn't never be about appealing to people purely on their identity.

That people see it that way is mainly cos culture and class are badly mixed up in the UK.

Who is responsible for mixing culture and class in this country is an interesting debate. I'd point the finger at puerile stereotyping by lefties as much as anything else, but I'm sure I won't get much agreement there

Anyway, if we're just talking purely about economics then surely this would be a non-thread. Middle class people will become working class overnight (almost) and their interests will immediately become aligned with the broader working class and everyone will have a merry time of it together. Possibly.

 

[Spion]

Anyway, if we're just talking purely about economics then surely this would be a non-thread. Middle class people will become working class overnight (almost) and their interests will immediately become aligned with the broader working class and everyone will have a merry time of it together. Possibly.

Only if you believe that objective class position automatically produces a corresponding class consciousness. I don't.

 

[Brainaddict]

What absolute twaddle.

Class is defined by ones relationship to the means of production and in this society, with a tiny minority of the population owning the vast bulk of productive property, no amount of change to ones 'values, politics etc' will put you in that tiny section of the population. Ownership will, however.

'class' may be an objective category in the sense you are talking about, but it's important to remember that class-based political struggle is not inevitable as a result of those categories - being dependent on people's identities and their perceptions of what they lose/gain by engaging in and identifying with class-oriented politics.

 

[Spion]

that's what I just said

But an objective understanding of class is crucial if you want fundamental social change. We have moved from a society that didn't allow private ownership to one that is now based on it. And it should be entirely possible to have a society that has no ownership of the means of production. Whether that bothers you depends on what you want to achieve by your understanding of class

 

[brasicritique]

The whole model of class that we use is falling apart anyway. That's something I've thought about a lot recently. "working class" no longer means anything concrete, if it ever did.

i am sure the miners would disagree with that

We can conjure up a stereotype based on it, but class in political terms really has come to nothing - the working class are not united against the rich,

i would say the working class may not be fighting the rich but that they know who they like and who they do not i have never met a working class person who has said god bless those city bankers and there bonuses i have yet to meet a working class person who liked royalty but is suppose this could happen such weirdos must exsist and given the sad way in which urban appears to be more intolerent in terms of posters beliving in society and community ( opting instead for a hedonistic liberalism with undertones of biological determinism) with its younger politcal posters appearing to be at there best wiki-intelectuals then i will probably run into one soon.

the middle class are not all propping them up,

The middleclass are propping them up this is a widely accepted fact within academia . What is the dominant culture and who produces it? anyway in terms of the right you have to remember that neo-cons are not just politicians and economists but that there ideas are themselves based on academic arguements and ideology - and therfore filter through into society/culture. I think what your might be syaing is not that class does not exsist but that class as a language which can challenge the status quo is defunct and if so i agree. - we are thought of as consumers or stake holders etc but these as yet do not have linguistic opposites with which to challenge the corperate/neo-con ideology embeded within these words and therefore current political language. Humanists and humanism may appear to offer a new dissenting dialogue but really they are just a cop out and concern themselves with the abstract and not the fact ie

is more important to lobby for western based concepts of freedom and democracy or the right to clean and free drinking water ?

They have no interest in socail or politcal reform as such or even market reform ( I have always found it is odd that chomskey puts himself amongst there number )

The left ( think duruti2 mp3 and violent panda ) as it stands speaks in the combination of tongues of both a victorian and 1980s lefty trendyism and this is why it seems to be often supporting neo-con right wing policies and has no relationship with the politcs of reality

Its all a question of what type of handbag you want to arrive in hell in really

 

[Brainaddict]

that's what I just said

Well, I think you said that people might not be aware of what class they were in or what that means for them. I said they might not give a fuck.

What always frustrates me in these debates is people coming up with the trump card of 'objective' class categories - as though that can't be argued with. It's like a century of philosophy and political theory never happened.

Yes, the 'objective' class exists, on paper, when viewing society through economic spectacles. It *might* have interesting things to say about the real world situation, and it might not.

That which is 'objective' within a particular framework of thought does not necessarily behave as an objective fact in the real world.

And that's me for today.

 

[butchersapron]

Has anyone noticed that it's usually m/c people insisting on this pure relationship to means of production approach. Other forms of social power they they have and that oppose their interests on a number of levels to those of the w/c are simply wiped away beneath this handy little rubric.

 

[butchersapron]

Well, I think you said that people might not be aware of what class they were in or what that means for them. I said they might not give a fuck.

What always frustrates me in these debates is people coming up with the trump card of 'objective' class categories - as though that can't be argued with. It's like a century of philosophy and political theory never happened.

Yes, the 'objective' class exists, on paper, when viewing society through economic spectacles. It *might* have interesting things to say about the real world situation, and it might not.

That which is 'objective' within a particular framework of thought does not necessarily behave as an objective fact in the real world.

And that's me for today.

My god this basic marx from 150 years ago. It's not a revelation.

 

[Brainaddict]

My god this basic marx from 150 years ago. It's not a revelation.

It is to a lot of the people who subscribe to class-based struggle on here, apparently.

ETA: Most people probably don't have the knowledge of Marx that you do. Whenever I try to argue against class-based politics being the only way forward, I get stonewalled with 'But class is an objective category, and class conflict is inevitable, so it's objectively the struggle we must always try to win'.

 

[butchersapron]

It is to a lot of the people who subscribe to class-based struggle on here, apparently.

I don't actually think so. I think it's just another in a long line of your 'misunderstandings' of what other people write or think about class.

I'm encouraged to find that you've finally admitted that classes exist and have real life effects though. Onwards and upwards.

 

[Spion]

Has anyone noticed that it's usually m/c people insisting on this pure relationship to means of production approach.

Yes, I hear it all the time at the golf club and when I drop Chlamydia and Labia off at private school

What tosh you talk

 

[Brainaddict]

I don't actually think so. I think it's just another in a long line of your 'misunderstandings' of what other people write or think about class.

I'm encouraged to find that you've finally admitted that classes exist and have real life effects though. Onwards and upwards.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, I hear it all the time at the golf club and when I drop Chlamydia and Labia off at private school

What tosh you talk

You don't recgonise this phenomena then? The m/c in the left, who dominate the left ignoring other forms of social power in the name of marx? Why would they do that. Other forms of social power - education, cultural capital, experience, social function etc all helping them and all irrelavent in this approach, because marx said so (which he didn't).

 

[cockneyrebel]

Has anyone noticed that it's usually m/c people insisting on this pure relationship to means of production approach. Other forms of social power they they have and that oppose their interests on a number of levels to those of the w/c are simply wiped away beneath this handy little rubric.

I agree with this (although the word usually is important). There clearly is a middle class in this country (read the guardian), and it clearly is quite seperate from many working class interests even if it can't be 100% defined.

 

[brasicritique]

The labour party has always been a coalition between middleclass and working class interets uneasily so- now howverr in todays world of globalisation the middleclass part of the labour party no longer need or want any workingclass relationship.

 

[Spion]

I agree with this (although the word usually is important). There clearly is a middle class in this country (read the guardian), and it clearly is quite seperate from many working class interests even if it can't be 100% defined.

I've not seen much Marxist analysis of class in the Guardian tbh. Or the Mail or Express or any of the other middlebrow papers

 

[cockneyrebel]

I've not seen much Marxist analysis of class in the Guardian tbh

No my point is that if you read the Guardian it reeks of what it is to be middle class. The middle class does exist, there is no doubt about that.

 

[Spion]

The labour party has always been a coalition between middleclass and working class interets

Rubbish. It's an alliance of the bosses (the upper class) and the trades unions

 

[Spion]

No my point is that if you read the Guardian it reeks of what it is to be middle class. The middle class does exist, there is no doubt about that.

What about the other broadsheets? I think it's silly to define the m/c by one particular paper that one has a bee in the bonnet about

 

[Spion]

You don't recgonise this phenomena then?

No. Where have you experienced it? What was the circumstance? TBH, I'd be glad if there were more people expounding a marxist analysis of class.

 

[cockneyrebel]

What about the other broadsheets? I think it's silly to define the m/c by one particular paper that one has a bee in the bonnet about

I'm just giving the guardian as an example. The middle class clearly do exist. It might not be something that I can define by a specific definition but they do, and you meet people all the time who are clearly middle class.

 

[brasicritique]

Rubbish. It's an alliance of the bosses (the upper class) and the trades unions

its not rubbish its true it might be an alliance of bosses now indeed this is what i am always saying myself. But before now it was an alliance of middlelcass progressive interest ie fabians and working class interest ie the unions cc-19th to mid 20th century. In view of these facts it is your ignorant post which is clealry rubbish.

 

[Spion]

The middle class clearly do exist.

Aye, well, yes . . . but their relationship to the means of production is not a fundamental one - they're smaller property owners or in some form of management or admin. They can only exist as a satellite to the two fundmental states of class - productive property-owning or proletarian

 

[butchersapron]

No. Where have you experienced it? What was the circumstance? TBH, I'd be glad if there were more people expounding a marxist analysis of class.

I experience it in the dominance of the m/c of cultural, educational, political economic and so on realms of social life and consequently in the leadeship and membership of the left as the same thing writ small. If you're happy to say that this is fine, it's just marxism playing itself out correctly and how things should be then fair play. It's a fucking joke though if you do think that - and a backdoor to allowing it to continue. Politically worthless. A sell out to an abstract moral idea rather then class as a living reality - and so not even marxist.

 

[brasicritique]

I'm just giving the guardian as an example. The middle class clearly do exist. It might not be something that I can define by a specific definition but they do, and you meet people all the time who are clearly middle class.

you should know by now cockney rebel your not allowed to critise your middleclass overlords on these boards you only have to look at violent panda and durutis posts and there lack of comment on the middleclass when disscussing the finer points of what is going wrong and who is to blame to see that. Remeber its ok to do a thread called the workingclass have an inferior IQ

 

[cockneyrebel]

Aye, well, yes . . . but their relationship to the means of production is not a fundamental one - they're smaller property owners or in some form of management or admin. They can only exist as a satellite to the two fundmental states of class - productive property-owning or proletarian

This is true, but far more often that not I think the middle classes are on the side of the bosses, and indeed are one of the main groups most like to vote for fascists in times of crisis.

If they are thrown out of their status by economic factors they might end up being forced into the camp of the working class but even then I'd have my suspicions. An upbringing of social prejudices and snobbery would be hard for them to overcome.

 

[butchersapron]

Aye, well, yes . . . but their relationship to the means of production is not a fundamental one - they're smaller property owners or in some form of management or admin. They can only exist as a satellite to the two fundmental states of class - productive property-owning or proletarian

And that's it - no other power relations exist?

 

[brasicritique]

they're smaller property owners or

awwwwwwww aint they cute love em

 

[Spion]

I experience it in the dominance of the m/c of cultural, educational, political economic and so on realms of social life and consequently in the leadeship and membership of the left as the same thing writ small. If you're happy to say that this is fine, it's just marxism playing itself out correctly and how things should be then fair play. It's a fucking joke though if you do think that - and a backdoor to allowing it to continue. Politically worthless. A sell out to an abstract moral idea rather then class as a living reality - and so not even marxist.

There are two things getting mixed up here:
1. A marxist view of class - a good thing, IMO
2. The personnel of the left - clearly unrepresentative of the w/c

 

[cockneyrebel]

I experience it in the dominance of the m/c of cultural, educational, political economic and so on realms of social life and consequently in the leadeship and membership of the left as the same thing writ small.

I agree with the first part of this but I think the second has to be qualified. There might be some of the left that are like this, but the left (both in the UK and internationally) is hugely different from place to place and group to group. I think you're generalising way too much.