Class

[Serial_Apologist]

I wouldn't put it in terms of "distraction" but in these terms: if you start from the (socialist) idea that class relationships are what drives historical social changes, calling any oppressed sector of the population a "class" atomises that idea into a series of disconnected "issues" like racism, sexism, homophobia etc. none of which in itself is or can be a factor in moving society as a whole in the direction of equality (which of course includes equality of gender, race, sexuality etc.).

With the proviso of course that bourgeois order does little to overcome these subdivisions - it's useful to the status quo having minorities to blame - it lays the preconditions.

[Flosshilde]

calling any oppressed sector of the population a "class" atomises that idea into a series of disconnected "issues" like racism, sexism, homophobia etc.

Possibly, except that for myself (&, I think, others) my developing knowledge of myself as a gay man & my awareness of the fact that being open could lead to economic oppression (in the sense of losing my job because of it) also lead to my understanding of the position of women, & ethnic minorities & developed my awareness of where power lay. So it didn't atomise my ideas, but coalesced them.

[Richard Barrett]

So it didn't atomise my ideas, but coalesced them.

Right - but as far as political action is concerned, an organisation like Stonewall does not concern itself with issues beyond its own priorities, except in so far as they might coincide. As S_A implies, it's in the interests of those who would preserve the status quo to downplay the fact that different forms of oppression are connected. As you say, being subjected to bigotry can increase one's awareness of other groups who are also subjected to it; likewise, it's quite unusual, for example, for a person to be a racist but on the other hand a supporter of women's and gay rights. So it doesn't seem far-fetched to me to conclude that the best way to resist any given form of oppression is to resist all of them, and that the best way to do this is to concentrate one's energies on class oppression because this is the location of the "motor of history". I'm not thereby trying to say that Stonewall is wasting its time, since it obviously isn't, but that this way of doing things isn't going to lead to any more fundamental change than a change in bourgeois law.

[Flosshilde]

So it doesn't seem far-fetched to me to conclude that the best way to resist any given form of oppression is to resist all of them, and that the best way to do this is to concentrate one's energies on class oppression

This is the argument the SWP used, & it was as false then as it is now; one should concentrate one's energies an all oppression. The problem with theories developed in the 19th century is that they were developed in a society where women were dependent on men, and slavery was justified on racial grounds. But their position was ignored because it was men writing the books.

I'm not thereby trying to say that Stonewall is wasting its time, since it obviously isn't, but that this way of doing things isn't going to lead to any more fundamental change than a change in bourgeois law.

Stonewall is a relative newcomer, & I would agree is reformist. If you look further back you will find that there were individuals & groups taking a more socialist view.

[Richard Barrett]

This is the argument the SWP used, & it was as false then as it is now; one should concentrate one's energies an all oppression. The problem with theories developed in the 19th century is that they were developed in a society where women were dependent on men, and slavery was justified on racial grounds.

That's not at all fair on Marx, who wrote explicitly about slavery and women's rights. So their position wasn't ignored. And indeed one should concentrate one's energies on all oppression (I thought that's what I was saying), the crucial difference with class oppression being that the working class possesses the economic power to overturn it. This is a gross simplification of course, and may well be in the process of being reframed (see Julien's Badiou link).

[aeolium]

What puzzles and worries me in at least some Marxist discussions of class and resistance is the enthusiasm for authoritarian solutions. In the Badiou essay linked to earlier. there was express admiration for four particular revolutionary eras: the French Revolution and especially the role played in it by St Just; the failed Paris Commune of 1871 about which Marx wrote; the Bolshevik Revolution and the Chinese Communist Revolution. Yet those of the revolutions which were successful, at least temporarily, resulted in extremely authoritarian regimes and especially persecution of intellectuals. St Just for instance was the promulgator of the notorious Law of Suspects in 1793 under which virtually anyone could be denounced (and perhaps up to half a million were) for suspicious activity in word or deed. It is impossible to understand why this sort of character would be attractive to an intellectual, one who ought to prize freedom of expression, unless that freedom of expression was only tolerable if it was the right kind of expression.

As to the definitions of class provided by S_A, it seems to me that these still are incoherent to the extent that they allow for a wide degree of latitude as to who precisely falls within each class. Turning from abstractions to real situations, who for instance constitutes the "bourgeoisie" in the current Eurozone crisis, where large sections of the population of certain countries have been impoverished and thrown out of work? Many from different classes seem to be demonstrating in the streets. Perhaps the bourgeoisie are the wealthy individuals, the executives of multinationals and senior government officials whose capital is mobile and transportable.

This very incoherence of definition has in the past allowed the widespread persecution or forced resettlement of large numbers of people in Marxist-inspired regimes on the grounds that they fall within the definition of the "bourgeoisie", the class enemies. And this is, to me, one of the repellent aspects of Marxist thinking, that it allows for the demonisation of a whole class of people where in general we do not tolerate the demonisation of groups of people - Jews, Muslims, gays, gypsies etc - on the sole basis that they fall within that particular category. And demonisation - consideration of a group of people as the "evil other" - is very close to dehumanisation so that the "evil other" can be treated as a subhuman species.

And as for "bourgeois law", it at least allows for the provision of fundamental rights (most of which would presumably be espoused by those writing here) and the possibility of defence against oppression by the state, which is not present in those countries where essentially the judiciary constitute an arm of the state. I would not wish to abandon it for some as yet undefined replacement.

I don't think absolute equality is a desirable goal. The sacrifices in many other qualities of life that it demands are too great. We do need much less inequality and should strive for it, but not in ways which replace democracy with authoritarianism.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

The problem with your idea that "it is a society which is dominated by the middle classes that is most likely to display adherence to the rule of law, enjoy political and regulatory institutions that are both honest and effective, and provide the best life chances for all their citizens" is surely that this is what we have now, and its logic is such that those institutions are being dismantled and many citizens are being provided with almost no life chances at all.

er it is my opinion that we have no such thing ... as the further references to gangsters and greedy psychopaths and agency capture i had hoped would make clear ... or views on inequality and stalled social mobility earlier in the thread .... imv we live in a corrupt and decaying imperial rump of a society and as with the well known stables, it needs a cleansing

there were in the 70s and 80s leftist groupings genuinely espousing the causes of social equality and development but not the Labour Party under Foot and Kinnock where there were groups very successfully destroying the prospects of power for social democrats or socialists, perhaps because they saw them/us as class traitors or some such ....... i had long since left the party, i did join the SDP on its formation and am unimaginatively mired still in the Lib Dems [for no good reason , i shall leave after Easter]

in fact i feel the prospects for social democracy, of the kind i might favour, dismally bleak ...


when it comes to talent i would care to make an observation or two .... first it is time to close the PPE and MBA programmes at major Universities .. neither in Political or Corporate life have these courses proved valid, and in fact may be damaging significant enterprise and an effective politics ...business history is littered with the ruins of financial engineering schemes developed in the case studies of Harvard Business School and aped across the planet --- the chap on the JS Bach film on BBC 4 last night who said that genius is one off, you can not proscribe the development of the greatest talents gets my vote .... it is a simple thought, but very potent, from Belbin that whilst qualifications make an individual eligible, they say nothing and guarantee little as to the individual's suitability ...

secondly i can recommend entirely wholeheartedly this excellent work on the patterns of friendship in creative work; one of many to elucidate the social nature of creative processes in arts and sciences .... and which,therefore, implicitly underpin the vital need for a fully open society if creativity is to flourish at all levels ...

[Richard Barrett]

I don't think absolute equality is a desirable goal. The sacrifices in many other qualities of life that it demands are too great. We do need much less inequality and should strive for it, but not in ways which replace democracy with authoritarianism.

How much inequality is enough?

[Beef Oven]

How much inequality is enough?

What level would you like the state to set it at RB?

[aeolium]

How much inequality is enough?

There was far less under the post-war Keynesian policies 1945-1970 with also high levels of employment. How would absolute equality be achieved without a high level of authoritarianism (which in the past has not even prevented persistent inequality associated with hierarchies of party membership)?

[eighthobstruction]

What level would you like the state to set it at RB?

I believe the govt have decided it is how many bedrooms you have....

[Beef Oven]

[QUOTEg=Richard Barrett;278542]How much inequality is enough?[/QUOTE]

In 'the state of nature', so as to speak, we are not born equal. We have agreed that we do not want to live in 'the state of nature' what with it being brutal and short an' all. Enter the state. What level of inequality should the state legislate for?

[Richard Barrett]

How would absolute equality be achieved without a high level of authoritarianism?

I think a question like that is probably predicated on an unspoken assumption that people are basically selfish, and perhaps additionally that this attribute is unchangeable because of its deep roots in evolution by natural selection. On the other hand, there's at least as much of a reason to say that people are basically cooperative (otherwise how could agriculture, for example, ever have come into being?), and if we want to appeal to evolution it's also clear that the nature of human society, not to mention pre-human society, has changed quite radically through the course of prehistory (recorded history being in comparison a very short time indeed). So I don't agree that "authoritarianism" has to be part of the package, except when, as we see from history, a revolutionary enclave somewhere in the world is forced to defend itself against overwhelmingly hostile surroundings whose rulers (rightly) see it as an existential threat to their own ascendancy. What is needed is something more like a change in consciousness spreading through society, which might be forced on the world at some point by environmental depletion (which itself is an aspect of the inexorable logic of capitalism), maybe on the level of the historial moment in the Palaeolithic age when, after hundreds of thousands of years of making strictly functional tools, people began also to make images.

"More than 50 percent of the world's assets are owned by the richest two percent of adults (...) while the bottom half of the world adult population own only one percent of wealth. Altogether, the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total." (These are UN figures from 2008.) The fact that we live under these extreme conditions makes it extremely difficult even to imagine what a world characterised by equality would look like. But surely any way of thinking which stops short of this objective involves saying that some people's lives are "worth more" than others.

[Beef Oven]

I think a question like that is probably predicated on an unspoken assumption that people are basically selfish, and perhaps additionally that this attribute is unchangeable because of its deep roots in evolution by natural selection. On the other hand, there's at least as much of a reason to say that people are basically cooperative (otherwise how could agriculture, for example, ever have come into being?), and if we want to appeal to evolution it's also clear that the nature of human society, not to mention pre-human society, has changed quite radically through the course of prehistory (recorded history being in comparison a very short time indeed). So I don't agree that "authoritarianism" has to be part of the package, except when, as we see from history, a revolutionary enclave somewhere in the world is forced to defend itself against overwhelmingly hostile surroundings whose rulers (rightly) see it as an existential threat to their own ascendancy. What is needed is something more like a change in consciousness spreading through society, which might be forced on the world at some point by environmental depletion (which itself is an aspect of the inexorable logic of capitalism), maybe on the level of the historial moment in the Palaeolithic age when, after hundreds of thousands of years of making strictly functional tools, people began also to make images.

"More than 50 percent of the world's assets are owned by the richest two percent of adults (...) while the bottom half of the world adult population own only one percent of wealth. Altogether, the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total." (These are UN figures from 2008.) The fact that we live under these extreme conditions makes it extremely difficult even to imagine what a world characterised by equality would look like. But surely any way of thinking which stops short of this objective involves saying that some people's lives are "worth more" than others.

You might be asking too much; maybe human nature is exactly as our ancestors believed it to be (I'm sure no-one needs an outline of Hobbes).

What I'm saying is that the Marxist analysis is just one perspective and the subject is much wider.

Perhaps we cannot achieve equality. It could be that people are born with differing abilities, one might be cleverer than another, and another may be better in a fist-fight. What does it really matter?

Attempting to achieve equality is noble, but possibly impossible.

Some accept that and look to the state to protect and facilitate those less able, but not interfere with those that are dynamic, capable and talented.

Indeed, some of us look to those dynamic people to create wealth, that might be sensibly distributed for the common good and maintenance of a civilised society.

[vinteuil]

. What is needed is something more like a change in consciousness spreading through society, which might be forced on the world at some point by environmental depletion (which itself is an aspect of the inexorable logic of capitalism), maybe on the level of the historial moment in the Palaeolithic age when, after hundreds of thousands of years of making strictly functional tools, people began also to make images.

.

... but this sounds all suspiciously like the perfectibilist ideas that flourished among such as William Godwin at the time of the French Revolution - that a time was arriving which would lead to perfect equality, and the very physiology of us wd change - there wd be no illness, no poverty, no misery...

I am sorry - my feelings about the French Revolution have led me to a degree of scepticism about the change to humanity you require for this to happen.