RE: [Marxism] Planet of Slums

["Nestor Gorojovsky" <nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Respuesta a: RE: [Marxism] Planet of Slums
Remitido por: Paddy Apling
Fecha: Viernes 26 de Marzo de 2004 
Hora: 9:42
*****

> The article by Mike David in NLR raises the question for Melvin P's thesis
> as to whether this "class" in the planet slums is possibly the
> revolutionary comminist class, or whether it has more the characteristics
> described in the Communist Manifesto as
>  "The 'dangerous class' the social scum, that passively rotting mass
> thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be
> swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of
> life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of
> reactionary intrigue."
> 

In Argentina, at least, they provided the prelude to Dec 19th, 2001. 
Not something one expects from "social scum".

The hyper-cities of the Third World shoud be understood as composed 
of an ocean of temporarily deranged populations around citadels of 
power and wealth, not as a neuronal network of slums.  

The deranged condition of populations in these slums cannot be 
supposed permanent, unless we decide to give up and stop fighting for 
socialism.

In the end, either the slums arise or the whole world will founder. 
Because these slums are the concrete expression of the limits to 
capitalist development. Marx and Engels (and certainly the Marx and 
Engels of the Manifesto) could hardly imagine that capitalism was to 
outlive itself for so long a time that the visible expression of its 
contradictions would not be the impoverishment of the working class 
but the actual exclusion of ever larger human masses even from the 
condition of exploited people.

The struggle of the people in these slums is "a struggle to become 
exploited".  Sooner or later, they will discover that they can only 
become "exploited" under a different social system. It is our task as 
revolutionaries to help them arrive at that conclusion.

They have no relation whatsoever with the "bribed tool of
reactionary intrigue" that Marx and Engels spoke about. They are not 
necessary, not even for _that_.  I am very much afraid that the 
bribed tool, today, lives in the First World, and sometimes it may be 
a blue collar.

Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
nestorgoro@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 
"Sí, una sola debe ser la patria de los sudamericanos".
Simón Bolívar al gobierno secesionista y disgregador de 
Buenos Aires, 1822
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 



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