[Marxism] Petty Bourgeois--the consciousness yardstick

["Mark Lause" <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm going to set aside the sociological and demographic criteria for the
moment--noting only that the last thing of importance to us should be
the "respectable academic status" of our analysis--and that Marv's
concerns on this merit elaboration--to focus on the matter of
consciousness...

Class rule in the US has always been firmly rooted in what we used to
call false consciousness, so the matter's really rather central to what
we're about.  I think we all agree that the important thing is
understanding the features of what we're looking at rather agreeing upon
a term, though I'd prefer not using a name already burdened by older
associations with a different phenomena entirely.  Either way, we have
to be precise, objective and consistent.

Lou concedes the shortcomings of the term, but prefers to hang onto the
term because it "reminds you that the people you are talking about have
a dual character, part of which is to share part of the class position
of the bourgeoisie."  I'd suggest that internal contradictions in groups
and individuals is implicit in the dialectical method, and that
bourgeois values are going to permeate the working class in capitalist
society.

Indeed, attitudes and values becomes an important part of Tom's case
where a presumably salaried manager "supervises 30 people, describes
part of the workforce they supervise as 'dead wood', earns a salary well
above average, pays someone to clean their house, invests in property
and shares, opposes the union, believes in neo-liberal economics and has
plans to become a consultant".  This is class identification by values
and attitude.

Scot is consistent in suggesting that "today's petty bourgeoisie are
those who give their allegiance to the ruling class, who in terms of
consciousness and action identify with the interests of the ruling class
and aspire to become a member of the ruling class. This by the way could
include a member of the traditional working class."  David contributes
that, on the basis of consciousness, the pettit bourgeoisie is actually
the growing class, the rising class.   This yardstick transform the
workingclass majority, for whose interests I have always believed myself
to be fighting, into a tiny minority of malcontents in a vast ocean of
aspiring shoppers and ambitious buyers of lottery tickets.


Fred conversely notes the absence of a class conscious workers' movement
and suggests that this makes all of us engaged in struggle "middle class
radicals."  By this light, the Nader campaign is middle class, as is the
SWP and all the socialist groups and, I'd add, all of us on this list.
I don't know that it's necessarily wrong, but I suspect most of the list
would bristle at the suggestion.

We must recognize that if we accept the yardstick of consciousness, we
are indirectly buying what the bourgeois and their various
culture-makers are selling.  That, however one might want to understand
it--income, wealth, education, race, job satisfaction, etc.--we are all
just little bourgeois beings cosmically plugged into the bourgeois
oversoul.

Accepting consciousness as the yardstick of class basically licenses
everybody to create their own social universe.  In my eyes, as I
struggle to make my way through the rush hour, the bastard in front of
me with the big ass car or the tendency to weave in and out of traffic
behaves like the only real person that counts in the whole universe and
hence a real petty bourgeois.  When I honk as an in a vain attempt to
impose some kind of order, planning and safety upon this chaotic
egocentrism, he flips me off because I'm a pushy honky petty bourgeois.
(Tony Abdo's remarks on this, which have just sparked into the network,
defines the problem quite well.)

This rather postmodernist view of the term embraces the inner child and
sanctions its whims as sociology (or is that the other way around).

In the end, we can use the term to describe all of us, which tells us
nothing.  Or we use the term to tell us something, but what it tells us
something false.

In terms of the Nader campaign, we can say one of two things.  First, it
is petty bourgeois and middle class because it is part of a society
where virtually everybody is petty bourgeois and middle class, including
social radicals--which means the term so general as to tell us nothing.
Or, we can say that, despite the similar social composition, the
socialist groups are workingclass, though the Nader campaign is petty
bourgeois, in which case the term tells us something arbitrary.

Either way, the term "petty bourgeois" is just misleading . . . the one
because it professes to tell us something and the other because it
professes to tell us something real.

Best,
Mark L.

PS: It's only fair to add that I still think that the overwhelming
majority of the society are working class people that exhibit, at least
in language, bourgeois values and assumptions--hastening to add that the
meaning they ascribe to such things is often different.  I don't think
it makes them petty bourgeois.  I think that what does exist of a petty
bourgeois is inherently atomized and politically incapable of
functioning as an independent political force on almost any level.  I
don't see the petty bourgeoisie as a numerically or socially ascendant
class in any sense of the term.




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