Re: AUT: Reactionary ideology........

[Ilan Shalif <gshalif@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi People and Tahir Wood

> Why is the definition of the class and the boundary between classes an issue in which debates become tangled and confused? (Is there a middle class? What is your definition of a worker? etc. etc.)
>
> To put it in a nutshell, it is a problem that arises from commonsense notions of categorisation. But advances in cognitive science over the last couple of decades have helped us to think differently about categorisation.

As ex-cognitive scientist I can point to more than 50 years old findings...
The categorization based on a container schema was studied by J. Piajet
as well as by other scientists.

It is the mode of cauterization most common in young teens applying
concrete intelligence - before the reach the extended operational mode
around age 15.

The more developed ones (around 15) are capable of mapping phenomena
according to dimensions instead of categorization to "containers".

Thus, if you adopt the more mature mode you can get to the roots
of the phenomena and use simultaneously all the relevant variables for the
mapping instead of the crude categorization.

You can start the mapping the people according to the main variable of
capitalism - profit/surpluss value/exploitation.
You can add the twin variable that is a condition for the above -
power/authority.
(You can regard ownership of means of production as subset
of power/authority or as a separate dimension.)


Of course you can and should add other variables/dimentions
as gender, racial-etnicity, locus of (psychological) control,
self identification, etc. to make the mapping more enlightening.

It is the opposite of the joking question: "is the cucumber
more greenish or more longish".

> The commonsense view is based on a container schema; something is either in the container or it is not (or it is in another container). What we see then is that each individual must be located absolutely within or without the container. But there is actually no container - a class is not a container.

In a way, the concept of working class versus capitalist class
can be equated to marking two opposing regions in a multi
dimensional space created by all the relevant dimensions/
variables. These two regions have core areas easy
to discern - like the blue collar industrial workers
on one side and the private owner of the factory.

The space have also intermediate regions in which people
move from one side of the imaginary demarcation plan
- working people ("class") - to the other side - the exploiters (capitalist class).

The intermediate space also include people which are harder to
decide if they are on the capitalist side or the worker side, like
people who are self employed, and even have some means
of production, but have an income which is the average for
work slaves or even below.

> What cognitive science now offers us is a whole range of ways of thinking about categories, including cognitive models of various kinds, prototypes, fuzzy sets and the like, all of which could be relevant to this discussion. I would just explore briefly for the moment the question of fuzzy boundaries between categories.

The fuzzy boundaries between categories can be the result from
the more primitive mode of pre-concretic intelligence or in this case
in an intermediate mode between the concrete thinking and the full
operational mode.

> I would say that there is a fairly broad band of strata between the bourgeoisie and the working class, which represents, let us say, the fuzzy boundary between the two fundamental classes of capitalism. This underlies the inevitable discussion of whether or not there is a middle class, a petty bourgeoisie, co-ordinating class or what you will.

I suggest that we do not stay with the intuitive feelings that the concrete
categorization with or/or boundaries are not in place, and thus use "
fuzzy approach, but use the multi dimensional approach.

> Why is this a better way of thinking about it? Because there are many individuals who oscillate in their relation to the means of production, and it is an utterly worthless exercise to actually track the oscillation in the class position from day to day of such individuals. What would be examples? A worker who scrimps and save to start a small business, a professor who gets promoted into a senior management position and is now in some kind of hiring and firing position at her university, someone who works in a factory when there is work and when there isn't sells fruit and vegetables on the sidewalk, a clerk or supervisor who is offered a
> small.....
>
> It concerns the role of communists and the location of communists in society. I am going to be controversial here, stick my neck out and say that it is precisely in this band of middle strata that communist thought spreads most easily.

If you have a multi dimensional space for mapping of
people, and understand the relations between these dimensions
and the subjectivity of people, you can be much more
effective in your subversive activities.

> The answer is not hard to find: these are people who are both in touch with workers on a daily basis AND have opportunities for education and some moments to contemplate difficult ideas, often during some recess in their working lives, a period at college, etc. (As a corollary I must of course say that these are the strata where ANTI-communist ideas are also most compelling - but that's another thread).

If you also understand that people subjectivity - meaning their
systems of believes and systems of opinions, and archives of
personal memories... and the the relations between these
and the dimensions of "class", you have more effectively.

> Just look at all the most important communist thinkers and leaders - how many of them do not come from a background of either merchant class, petty industrialist, intellectual, clerical, etc.? Yes there are some who come from solidly working class backgrounds and others who come from solidly bourgeois backgrounds, but I venture to say that these are
> far..

Well, the effects of the relevant dimensions can explain some
of the elitist, vanguardist, despising of the common working people
of these. (And their so easy to accommodate to the most
awful and cruel treatment of the toiling people.)

> The practical significance of all of this, I am becoming more and more convinced, is deep and concerns the relationship between party and class. I am using the notion here of communist party in its original sense, i.e. referring simply to the communists as a group. If communists generally are not 'solidly' working class in the sense I have mentioned, then how do they relate to the class?

If people fail to see the rich interaction between the relevant
variables within the anti capitalist activists, they tend to
attach themselves to the most obvious phenomena
which is not always the most relevant.
Ilan



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