Class

[Richard Barrett]

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?

Here I would (no doubt predictably) bring up the concept of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". That we humans are even capable of framing such an idea possibly says something about our potential to realise it. It doesn't require a concept of "perfection". Clearly every attempt so far to create a just and equal society (which objective only became imaginable at a certain relatively recent point in human history) has failed. But every attempt to move large weights over long distances without a massive expenditure of energy failed until the wheel was invented.

[Beef Oven]

Here I would (no doubt predictably) bring up the concept of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs". That we humans are even capable of framing such an idea possibly says something about our potential to realise it. It doesn't require a concept of "perfection". Clearly every attempt so far to create a just and equal society (which objective only became imaginable at a certain relatively recent point in human history) has failed. But every attempt to move large weights over long distances without a massive expenditure of energy failed until the wheel was invented.

Yes RB, I too was reticent about referring to 'from each...'.

I don't disagree at all. Where I would take issue though, is that it should not be interpreted as meaning that we equalise all facilities and material ownership, right across the board (viz my post #123).

[Richard Barrett]

Yes RB, I too was reticent about referring to 'from each...'.

I don't disagree at all. Where I would take issue though, is that it should not be interpreted as meaning that we equalise all facilities and material ownership, right across the board (viz my post #123).

It wasn't reticence, it was just waiting for the right moment (which was bound to come)!

I see where you take issue. But why should it not be interpreted as meaning such complete equality? what is so wrong with that, as far as you're concerned?

[Beef Oven]

It wasn't reticence, it was just waiting for the right moment (which was bound to come)!

I see where you take issue. But why should it not be interpreted as meaning such complete equality? what is so wrong with that, as far as you're concerned?

I would say that it should not be treated as complete equality for two inextricable reasons. Firstly, we have not been 'created' equal and it is irrational to think so. Secondly, if rationality is irrelevant, attempts to create complete equality will be doomed to failure therefore.

Either way, such analysis (Marxist) is good as far as it goes, but praxis requires something else.

[Flosshilde]

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).

I think that any discussion of class now, when government 'austerity' measures & 'reforms' of public services affect women more than men, that doesn't take a wider view is hardly worth having.

[Richard Barrett]

I think that any discussion of class now, when government 'austerity' measures & 'reforms' of public services affect women more than men, that doesn't take a wider view is hardly worth having.

AT the same time, "austerity" affects working-class people overwhelmingly more than it does anyone else. It is class warfare pure and simple.

[Beef Oven]

AT the same time, "austerity" affects working-class people overwhelmingly more than it does anyone else. It is class warfare pure and simple.

RB, tell us a bit more about austerity affecting working class people more (that's to say nothing of the overwhelming bit). If it's class war pure and simple, it must be that the state is wholly acting in the interest of one of those classes, and I'd thought the debate around Poulantzas et al had taken us beyond that.

[Serial_Apologist]

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.

Agreed.

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.

Agreed!

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.

Agreed!!

The question that remains is the securability of these fundamental rights, when innate problems in the system we live under leads governments and states to attack those least in a position to defend themselves; the present situation being a typical example.

It's the systemic character of capitalism's problems, and the way it generates inequality and perpetuates power at the top, rather than envy, that socialists are primarily concerned with.

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.

As RB is already tacking this issue in terms of general principles, I'll keep schtum for now!

[Beef Oven]

Agreed.



Agreed!



Agreed!!

The question that remains is the securability of these fundamental rights, when innate problems in the system we live under leads governments and states to attack those least in a position to defend themselves; the present situation being a typical example.

It's the systemic character of capitalism's problems, and the way it generates inequality and perpetuates power at the top, rather than envy, that socialists are primarily concerned with.



As RB is already tacking this issue in terms of general principles, I'll keep schtum for now!

Please don't keep schtum - join in. Drill down from these general principles and let's test out how it affects real people in the here and now. I'm not frightened aout what we might find.

Afterthought: Unless of course you are suggesting that we have a revolution and replace capitalism with something else. Then that's a different debate. Is that what you mean?

[Serial_Apologist]

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]

The intimate unfoldings of what you cite were wonderfully portrayed in "Our Friends in the North". Any left-moving Labour Party would always have to face up to Foot's problem - the now-increasingly discredited tabloid press - so that's a nanostep forward. Militant only had Liverpool to claim for its efforts; those of us who stayed in took them on in debate.

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 ...

At one time I confess to having thought Maslow radical...

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 ...

Yes but what could be the preconditions for friendship-based workplaces? Most people feel grateful for getting a job in the first place; and, in any case, capitalist enterprises have to compete - if you get me.

Mandel put it rather succintly once - something to the effect that I own the factory that makes the products which compete on the market with your products. I require you to put up your wages, so that your employees can buy my products; but you require me to do the same! Or Brecht in his 1937 play "The Round Heads and The Pointed Heads" (brilliantly set to music by Hanns Eisler btw) - they're all against one-another in competition until... we get our act together: then they are suddenly united.

[Beef Oven]

The intimate unfoldings of what you cite were wonderfully portrayed in "Our Friends in the North". Any left-moving Labour Party would always have to face up to Foot's problem - the now-increasingly discredited tabloid press - so that's a nanostep forward. Militant only had Liverpool to claim for its efforts; those of us who stayed in took them on in debate.



At one time I confess to having thought Maslow radical...



Yes but what could be the preconditions for friendship-based workplaces? Most people feel grateful for getting a job in the first place; and, in any case, capitalist enterprises have to compete - if you get me.

Mandel put it rather succintly once - something to the effect that I own the factory that makes the products which compete on the market with your products. I require you to put up your wages, so that your employees can buy my products; but you require me to do the same! Or Brecht in his 1937 play "The Round Heads and The Pointed Heads" (brilliantly set to music by Hanns Eisler btw) - they're all against one-another in competition until... we get our act together: then they are suddenly united.

So what should be done?


(Or what is to be done? If you prefer)

[Richard Barrett]

it must be that the state is wholly acting in the interest of one of those classes

It certainly looks that way, doesn't it? Can you for example think of a single element of Cameron/Osborne's economic policy which doesn't further impoverish working class people while preserving the privileged position of their own class? As S_A says, "innate problems in the system we live under leads governments and states to attack those least in a position to defend themselves; the present situation being a typical example."

Returning to the question of equality, of course you're right when you say that human beings have not been "created" equal. But why should that mean that any (presumably) biological dis/advantages should be translated into social ones?

[Beef Oven]

Returning to the question of equality, of course you're right when you say that human beings have not been "created" equal. But why should that mean that any (presumably) biological dis/advantages should be translated into social ones?

Because it's doomed to failure. Anything based on false assumptions goes that way.

[Serial_Apologist]

RB, tell us a bit more about austerity affecting working class people more (that's to say nothing of the overwhelming bit). If it's class war pure and simple, it must be that the state is wholly acting in the interest of one of those classes, and I'd thought the debate around Poulantzas et al had taken us beyond that.

I think it's more a question of the state - or more accurately governments - being in positions to offer concessions further down the line when the economy is in an upturn phase, but someone has to cough up when the party's over, just as they did after the 20s. It all comes down to expediency.

Post WW2, of course, there was consensus such that mainstream opinion right through the Labour Party, and similar parties on the Contenent, that socialism could be attained by gradual means, was only in minor degree different from One Nation Tories, who still had memories of us chaps all being in it together in The War, and Sandhurst types found out those common chaps were'nt such a bad lot really: after all in the end we are all British.

The Poulantzas part hasn't really engaged the debate - his views that the w class sees the state differently from at the time of Marx because it has changed in nature is further along the line I think.

[Beef Oven]

I think it's more a question of the state - or more accurately governments - being in positions to offer concessions further down the line when the economy is in an upturn phase, but someone has to cough up when the party's over, just as they did after the 20s. It all comes down to expediency.

Post WW2, of course, there was consensus such that mainstream opinion right through the Labour Party, and similar parties on the Contenent, that socialism could be attained by gradual means, was only in minor degree different from One Nation Tories, who still had memories of us chaps all being in it together in The War, and Sandhurst types found out those common chaps were'nt such a bad lot really: after all in the end we are all British.

I'd still like to hear something a bit more concrete about how working class people are affected more by austerity.

And speak for yourself, we are not all British.