[A-List] Romantizing working classes - class and boundary

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

.


MP: Classes decay  in the face of the advance of industry and there is
nothing new about this  process.

^^^^^ CB: Do you subscribe to Lenin's definition of classes ?

MP: Produce the definition.

I will explain in unmistakable terms what class means to me and this is not
the classical Marxist understanding of class as I understand the meaning of
classical American Marxism and its interpretation. As I understand matters
you  consider yourself a classical Marxist or classical American Marxist. As
I have  stated many times I do not by any stretch consider myself a
classical American  Marxists, although I am American by citizenship,
citizenship status and
culture.

The issue is the decay of classes as an expression of the advance of
industry or what is the same the revolutionizing of the material power of
production or what is the same a revolution in that which is fundamental to
the  technological regime. The decay of the industrial working class has
been a  process spanning roughly three decades and some place the high point
of  expansion of the industrial classes - its zenith before it begins dcay,
in  America at the late 1950s.

^^^^^
CB: What do you mean by "the decay of classes" and "the decay of the
industrial working class "?

When you say the classes decay as an expression of the advance of industry ,
what do you mean more specifically ? Do you mean that the CAD/CAM
developments reduce the number of jobs, and that causes the classes do decay
?

By "decay" , do you mean fewer numbers of the absolute number of industrial
workers in the U.S. ? In the whole world ?

^^^^^

An example of class is as follows. The men and women who work for say
General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, producing vehicles directly and indirectly
are  called an industrial working class.

^^^^^
CB: Do you mean that these autoworkers are a different class than other wage
laborers ?  Do you define the industrial working class as a different class
than the non-industrial working class ?

In my opinion, industrial workers and non-industrial workers make up the
working class. Membership in the working class is defined by being a
wage-laborer whether in industry or not.

^^^^

They are called an industrial working class
because of their relationship to property as the actual process of
production.  Their are layers of people - strata, within the corporate
structure that is the  above auto producers that one may argue over their
designation, but what is not  arguable is that the people who build and
assemble vehicles in plants
like  Jefferson Assembly in your home town are industrial workers. They are
part of  the industrial working class.

^^^^^
CB; Do you subscribe to the classical Marxist idea that there are two main
classes in capitalism, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat ?  If yes, aren't
the industrial working class and non-industrial working class all the same
main class, the working class , and aren't they all defined as working class
by their being wage-laborers ?

^^^^^


The workers in "heavy industry" in the former Soviet Union were industrial
workers and theirs was an industrial working class although their
relationship  to property in the process of production was not identical to
the property
relations of the industrial workers in America. I am confident to state that
the  people building vehicles and subway trains and tanks in the former
Soviet Union  were industrial workers and members of the industrial working
class or the  working class.

^^^^^
CB: By your definitions are there any members of the working class besides
the industrial working class ?

^^^^^

A lawyer is not an industrial workers or part of the industrial working
class as most people in our country understand and experience the reality of
class and its immediate form - manifestion. Former Chrysler CEO Bob Eaton
was  not
part of the industrial working class although he was most certainly part of
Chrysler corporation. Class is a material relations expressed as what we do
with  a given set of productivity instruments we find in existence and use
to  reproduce our daily lives or means of living. Car salesmen are not
considered
part of the industrial working class although they generally sit in the
identical relations to property - in relationship to the bourgeoisie power,
as  industrial workers.

^^^^
CB: What class is a car salesman who doesn't own the company in ? By your
definition is the working class identical with the industrial working class
?

^^^^^

Unemployed workers are considered part of the working class because they
possess no means of subsistence other than the sale of their labor power,

^^^^
CB: Do you define membership in the working class by owning no means of
subsistence other than the sale of one's labor power ? If so, are
non-industrial people who have only their labor power to sell part of the
working class by your thinking ?

^^^^^^



even
if they are not able to sale their labor power at a given moment or for an
undetermined amount of time. The reason they are part of the working class
and  not necessarily part of the industrial working class, is because of
they  relationship to property as the process of production.

^^^^^^
CB: So, there are members of the working class who are not members of the
industrial working class.

Are the industrial workers members of the working class because of what they
do ( work in industry) or because they own only their labor power to sell to
make a living ?

^^^^^


A class is a very large group of people that are identified by having
something in common. Everyone knows that lawyers are not industrial workers
because they lack something in common that is understood as the meaning of
class, although all lawyers are not rich by any stretch of the imagination
or  own the
kind of property that dominates the individual and compels him to work  on
the owners behalf or the institutions that express the property and social
relations that evolved on the basis of the owners of production.

^^^^^
CB: What is the something in common had that identifies the working class ?
Is it owning only one's labor power to sell to make a living ?

^^^^^

Today, one  does
not have to own a factory to be a capitalist, but can be a capitalist by
occupying a social position - station in like, that allows them to be
regarded  as a capitalist in their societal treatment and the privileges
afforded to  capitalist are bestowed upon them.

^^^^^^
CB: How do you define capitalist ?

^^^^^^

Therefore I define class from two directions in our society and also a
historical category: a). What one does - the actual tools, instruments,
machines  and underlying energy source deployed as production of things and
ones  relationship to this infrastructure of things as laboring and b). The
persons relationship to property rights in the process of production. This
does  not exhaust
class because ones dimensions of wealth - as an aggregate of people  or
distinct social group measured against other social groups in society, also
defnes class. Dimensions of wealth can in turn express ones relationship to
property as owner - or rather allow one to be treated and occupy a social
station in
life that arose as an expression of a real class.

For instance anyone possessing the power of say 100 million dollars can be
treated and occupy a social position in our society identified as a
bourgeois or  capitalist life style or social status. This does not mean the
individual  must own factories, oil wells or physical property to be
regarded as a
capitalist. Classes are also defined and measured in relationship to one
another. In America we had a significant sharecropper class for many decades
after the Civil War. This class decayed with the advance of industry or the
mechanization of agriculture. As a large social group the sharecropper class
no  longer exists. Class must always be defined - for me, and spoken of
concretely  and
not just in its abstract setting as a property relations - in my opinion.

^^^^^
CB: So, there are not two main classes in capitalism, in your opinion ?

^^^^^^

For instance the millions of people on welfare in our country are
understood by me to be of the working class rather than the bourgeoisie or
the  lumpen proletariat class that some classical Marxist speak of. What
makes them  working class is their relationship to property and many members
of this section  of
the working class have no connection with production. Some folks on welfare
actually work.

^^^^^
CB: Yes, I understand most people on welfare here to be in the working
class.  Some might be lumpen , as just as you say some people on welfare
work, some might work at lumpen projects. But don't "lump" most people on
welfare in the lumpen. Also, I consider lumpen to be part of the working
class. Proletariat means working class , so lumpen proletariat are lumpen
working class.

In this statement above you seem to be doing the opposite of what you just
said: you are defining many welfare recipients as working class because of
"their relationship to property".  I AGREE ! Many people on welfare are
working class because of their relationship to property, their lack of
property relationship to the means of production, by their only ownership
being of their labor power ( though it is not being bought by anybody when
they are unemployed). I would say that people on welfare are part of the
relative surplus population, the term I used here, which is _not_ the same
as the lumpen proletariat. There may be lumpen in the relative surplus
population, but there are mostly non-lumpen in the relative surplus
population.


BUT THIS IS THE MAIN ISSUE OF DISPUTE OR MAIN LACK OF CLARITY THAT I  SEE;
AND HERE YOU ARE USING MORE MY APPROACH. ELSEWHERE YOU ESCEW DEFINING CLASS
BY RELATIONSHIP TO PROPERTY. WHY DO YOU USE IT HERE AND ESCHEW IT ELSEWHRE ?

^^^^^^

I do not object to using class in a more limited and narrow meaning because
it is the meaning of things we are interested in. I do not object to anyone
speaking of doctors as a class, lawyers as a class with these classes having
stratification based on income.

^^^
CB: Well, yea, of course we can't decide how everybody uses the word, but
when we subscribe to a Marxist approach, shouldn't we restrict our
definition to the classical Marxist usages ? Class is such a critical
concept in the Marxist strategy for fundamentally changing society.

As to doctors and lawyers, Marx and Engels note way back at the time of _The
Manifesto_ that capitalism was making wage-laborers out of traditional
professionals such as professors, lawyers ,doctors. Many of these are petit
bourgeoisie, in that they own relatively small amounts of means of
production. Petit bourgeoisie are not a main class.

I use "strata " for non-main class divisions.

^^^^^^

 I do not object to anyone speaking of the
second  class citizenship status of blacks or women. Although all balcks and
women are  not working classs or of the industrial working class in large or
small scale  production.

^^^^
CB: Yes, I think we must accede to this popular usage, but in our discourse
here, we can be a bit more strict , at those of us subscribing to a Marxist
theory can.

^^^^^^

This matter of class can be complicated because service workers can be part
of the industrial working class, but lawyers and car salesmen and stock
brokers  are never confused with being part of the industrial working class.

^^^^^^^
CB: Here again, do you say there are non-industrial members of the working
class ? I say yes.

^^^^^^


 Michael
 Jackson is not an industrial worker, but his dad once was working in a
steel  mill. What is not complicated is that a lawyer is not an industrial
worker  and the workers that have built truck engines over the past 50 years
are part
of  the industrial working class and never confused with the class of
doctors. I beleive their are also subjective deminsions to class.

^^^^^^
CB; I wouldn't designate lawyers of doctors as a distinct class. They are ,
by and large, petit bourgeoisie. Some few are capitalists. Some can be
working class, if they work for a salary/wage only , and own none of the
office or hospital etc. that they work in.

Clearly they don't work in a factory at factory specific work, though there
might be a doctor somehow in a factory attending to workers.

^^^^^^

That the industrial form of the working class is in decay is indisputable
even as some parts of earth are at the front and middle of the industrial
revolution Europe experienced some time ago. Since we are in America and not
somewhere else in the middle curve of industrial development, I am confident
to  state that we are definitely not going through the industrial revolution
we
already went through. I do not need to have every read an ounce of Marx to
know  we at not at the front curve of the industrial revolution. Lets look
at how  someone else has decribed some of the process of the Industrial
Revolution  Europe went through.

^^^^^^
CB: What is your definition of "industry " here ? You don't have to read
every thing in Marx to define it, but for clarity are you using Marx's
definition or another definition ? Do you mean by industry only large
factories ? I can see saying the factory system is in decline. I can't see
that industry is in decline, because I define industry as machine centered
production, and machine production is increasing, not decaying or lessening.
What is lessening is the number of human workers or human hours per unit of
production. That is a decay in manufacture, not industry ( See chapter from
Capital that I posted)

^^^^^^