Re: John Holloway debate

[Mervyn Hartwig <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message , Dave Carroll <dccarrol@xxxxxxxx> writes

> something I work on every day, is the training of new organizers and
> the creation of coalitional ties in the community with anti-racist
> organizations, the anti-war movements, student democracy groups,
> co-operative organizations, etc.  When we can speak of millions of
> leaders, and millions of organizers, then we will be discussing a new
> form of "power-to-do."

I couldn't agree more, and sounds like you're a lot better at it than
I've ever been. But on your own account this is by no means only a
question of  the working class and working class consciousness. I'm
inclined to agree with what Roy Bhaskar said on this topic in a recent
interview, and sounds like you might be too:

************
I can't see that in general you can argue that there's any other unit we
can emancipate (better, which can emancipate itself) other than the
whole human race, I really can't. It's a peculiar paradox, because I'd
be more orthodox than the orthodox in relation to the analysis of the
fundamental structures of capitalism, but I'm completely unorthodox when
it comes to concepts of class consciousness. Not because I don't think
concepts of class consciousness are important. But isolating a specific
category of people who are going to lead us all--that won't happen,
that's substitutionism, it hasn't happened. So that's not because I
don't respect the working class; it's because--where is the working
class? The working class is in all of us, and in a society like Britain,
the traditional industrial working class scarcely exists.
***********

When he says 'the working class is in us all', I think he means, not
that we are all working class (though in terms of relation to the means
of production, apart from a still very significant peasantry -- many of
whom, however, are into wage labour as a supplement -- the great
majority of the world's population are in fact working class) but the
subject of history, the agent of change, is all of us -- we all have to
get involved in the struggle.

(This interview will be downloadable free when our new website opens
shortly: http:\\www.journalofcriticalrealism.org)

Mervyn
--
Mervyn Hartwig
Editor, Journal of Critical Realism
mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx