Where are the black anarchists?

[LLETSA]

Have Workers Power ditched the long rifle tactic or are they still directing the workers defence squads in Iraq?

Dunno, but I don't think the imperialists really know what they've got coming to them.

 

[888]

Working class people are more attracted to pragmatic solutions and politics and find it easier to fit into a 'movement'. Middle class people are more egocentric and don't fit into groups as easily.

Also, Virgos often have a penchant for over-organisation while Capricorns prefer small, close knit groups.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Dunno, but I don't think the imperialists really know what they've got coming to them.

Not.....the new mass party of the working class? Damn I knew I should have personally called on the so called lefts in the TU leadership to break with Labour. Now the buggers are setting one up in Iraq. I hope they are calling for a sliding scale of wages/

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Also, Virgos often have a penchant for over-organisation while Capricorns prefer small, close knit groups.

Steady my birthday is on September 12th and I still haven't finalised the time between 10.00 hrs and 10.15 or the colour of the socks I will be wearing.

 

[LLETSA]

Not.....the new mass party of the working class? Damn I knew I should have personally called on the so called lefts in the TU leadership to break with Labour. Now the buggers are setting one up in Iraq. I hope they are calling for a sliding scale of wages/

They'll only make transitional demands if Trotskyists fight for a genuine class struggle leadership. None of this reformist flim flam. No sell out!

 

[montevideo]

If you asked, I'd define it as this:
The working class consists of all the people in society who can not get by without selling our time and energy to a boss - by working. I.e. if we do not make large amounts of money from property holdings or owning a business we have to be wage labourers, or in some places in the world rely on state welfare or crime.

The capitalist class consists of those individuals who do not have to work (though they generally do) since they draw enough income from property such as land, housing or businesses/stocks and shares.

The class struggle lies in this: bosses want workers to work the longest hours for the least pay, workers want to work the shortest hours for the most pay. A struggle results which manifests itself in a myriad of different ways.

that's very over-simplistic. You should read unfinished business for a bit more depth.

Is this really your analysis of class struggle?

 

[rednblack]

that's very over-simplistic. You should read unfinished business for a bit more depth.

Is this really your analysis of class struggle?

it's the bit where he says about it manifesting in many different ways that is the important bit, it covers a multitude of sins

 

[montevideo]

it's the bit where he says about it manifesting in many different ways that is the important bit, it covers a multitude of sins

by that description above i'm a class strugglist through & through. (Although no-where is capitalism itself being challenged by the class struggle. Workers simply want more pay. Does the class struggle end when cpaitalsim grants the shorter hours for the most pay?) Next stop libertarian marxism. I must read more theory.

 

[rednblack]

but capitalism cannot grant shorter hours and decent pay to all workers around the world, or even in this country - so a global struggle for liveable hours, pay and i'd add safe comfortable working conditions is anti capitalist

 

[cockneyrebel]

but capitalism cannot grant shorter hours and decent pay to all workers around the world, or even in this country - so a global struggle for liveable hours, pay and i'd add safe comfortable working conditions is anti capitalist

Surely this is only a side show the the CLOWN ARMY and jester jugglers assocation?

LLETSA leaving aside all the digs/jokes for one minute.

I think there is a meaning to working class and middle class. Even about what you said about being a student. It took me nearly my whole first year at uni to "fit in" and then it was mainly because I found working class mates (I think a fair few people thought I was a "chav"). It's not something you can put your finger on exactly. And if it was like that for me being from a "working class done good" family, it must be a lot harder for others.

All I'm saying is that the term "middle class" has its problems. Firstly it's very fluffy and from that point of view not nearly as good as Marx's terms in analysing society. I accept your jokey comments about Marxist terms not being exactly well know, but that doesn't mean they aren't more useful in seeing what is going on.

The other problem with the word middle class is it is used by the ruling classes to divide and even deny the existance of a sizeable working class.

I actually agree with some of your comments about the make up of things like the G8 protests, I just think you bend the stick too far and also make too many stereotypes. For instance there will be many people from the RMT, FBU, UNISON, CWI etc at the G8 who are in every sense working class. Not nearly enough, granted, but it's still a positive thing IMO and can have a wider knock on effect if things are built out of the G8.

 

[LLETSA]

that's very over-simplistic. You should read unfinished business for a bit more depth.

Is this really your analysis of class struggle?

Kinnel I agree with montevideo.

Have you had to make do with sensible pills during the big Ketamine dry-up?

 

[montevideo]

Kinnel I agree with montevideo.

Have you had to make do with sensible pills during the big Ketamine dry-up?

& so far i've pretty much agreed with what you've been saying.

You been reading some dodgy anarchist literature in the toilet?

 

[LLETSA]

& so far i've pretty much agreed with what you've been saying.

You been reading some dodgy anarchist literature in the toilet?

Only old copies of Class War:the best-known publication in the entire world.

According to some....

 

[LLETSA]

Surely this is only a side show the the CLOWN ARMY and jester jugglers assocation?

LLETSA leaving aside all the digs/jokes for one minute.

I think there is a meaning to working class and middle class. Even about what you said about being a student. It took me nearly my whole first year at uni to "fit in" and then it was mainly because I found working class mates (I think a fair few people thought I was a "chav"). It's not something you can put your finger on exactly. And if it was like that for me being from a "working class done good" family, it must be a lot harder for others.

All I'm saying is that the term "middle class" has its problems. Firstly it's very fluffy and from that point of view not nearly as good as Marx's terms in analysing society. I accept your jokey comments about Marxist terms not being exactly well know, but that doesn't mean they aren't more useful in seeing what is going on.

The other problem with the word middle class is it is used by the ruling classes to divide and even deny the existance of a sizeable working class.

I actually agree with some of your comments about the make up of things like the G8 protests, I just think you bend the stick too far and also make too many stereotypes. For instance there will be many people from the RMT, FBU, UNISON, CWI etc at the G8 who are in every sense working class. Not nearly enough, granted, but it's still a positive thing IMO and can have a wider knock on effect if things are built out of the G8.

I agree that Marx's terms are useful to analysis, though obviously not for everyday conversation. However, I don't think that any of what I've said in this thread contradicted them.

And I don't see that what you say about the ruling class using the term middle class as a tool to divide-and-rule has any relevance to a thread in which I have pointed out that the working class is a majority of society and, if recent polls are to be believed, see themselves as such.

I never said that the union members that will go to the G8 protest are not working class. I merely questioned the usefulness of putting all that energy into what is essentially a symbolic protest that only registers with the shrinking, politically active elements of the working class- and these a working class organised in a labour movement that is becoming increasingly irrelevant to those working class people who most need organisation.

 

[cockneyrebel]

It depends. If the process helps in a political radicalisation of people that are trade union members, and that in turn helps the process in which a rank and file can be built to challenge the TU bureuacracy then I think it could be useful.

 

[blamblam]

that's very over-simplistic. You should read unfinished business for a bit more depth.

Is this really your analysis of class struggle?

Monte - I see that as the basis of where class struggle arisis, and why there will always be struggle under capitalism.

by that description above i'm a class strugglist through & through. (Although no-where is capitalism itself being challenged by the class struggle. Workers simply want more pay. Does the class struggle end when cpaitalsim grants the shorter hours for the most pay?)

Of course workers don't simply want more pay - I'm sure you're aware that the capitalist system does not fulfil human dreams and desires sufficiently. But capitalism as a system has a material basis, which is the ownership of most of the means of production (+ survival for the population) by a tiny few, and the exploited wage labour of everyone else.

The class struggle will not end when capital grants workers shorter hours and more pay, if you've noticed it has granted far shorter hours and much more pay, especially in the West. It can never grant hours short enough, or pay high enough - as you well know.

I don't think this is simplistic, since I'm just talking about the material substructure. Class struggle manifests itself in a myriad of different ways, as I said before, including in culture, war, language, school - and every other aspect of life.

 

[cockneyrebel]

The class struggle will not end when capital grants workers shorter hours and more pay, if you've noticed it has granted far shorter hours and much more pay, especially in the West. It can never grant hours short enough, or pay high enough - as you well know.

Well living standards in many non-Western countries have gone down over the last 20 years or so. And many western countries have seen increases in working hours the last few years.