Re: [Marxism] Is "class" at the root of the real division in society?

[brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Haines Brown)]

I've followed this debate rather carelessly because it frequently
entered upon topics of lesser interest for me, but perhaps I may be
allowed to inject a point so far not mentioned.

In Marxism, a "class" is defined as a relation of production. I'd like
to raise the question of why this is so. Undoubtedly it is a more
difficult way to define something, and it is quite different from the
way we usually represent things in our daily life. Given this, it
obviously requires some justification.

Let me start by elaborating the Marxist definition of class. A
"relation of production" it is safe to say refers to the causal
relation shared by workers to the means of production. What seems to
me significant here is that a social class is not being defined in
terms of certain empirical qualities that its members happen to share,
but rather their shared causal relation. If something is defined (and
is viewed essentially) in terms of a causal relation, it is being
defined as a "process", not a "thing".

So my initial question then becomes, why define classes as processes?
It seems to me there are two reasons. I will refer to the modern
working class, but what I say is meant to apply to all classes at any
time in history, including even the prehistoric period, which I see as
implicitly class-based rather than in terms of gender relations. My
position on this is controversial and so I'll not elaborate it here.

First, representing human beings as processes avoids trying to define
people in terms of a "human nature", which by implication assumes a
set of static qualities. Beside the obvious point that over the
centuries no one has really been able to list these qualities to
everyone's satisfaction so that they might become operational in
social analysis, it tends to discount human creativity.

True, some have therefore preferred to define human nature as being
"Promethean" and offer creativity as the principal feature of human
nature. However, doing so tends to be tautological and it is not
particularly helpful when it comes to social analysis. Historians
don't view the Egyptian pyramids as evidence to prove that humans are
creative, but instead ask why they were built, how they were built,
and what explains their features.

The problem is that to suggest creativity defines human nature leaves
that capacity abstract. Instead, it must be represented as being part
of a project and constrained by circumstance so that the notion
becomes might become useful. By providing that needed empirical
context in terms of a relation of production, human creativity is made
central, but it exists in terms of specific conditions which make it
scientifically operational.

The second point I'd like to mention is that defining class as a
process represents the working class in dynamic terms, rather than as
being (unequivocally) determined by circumstance. The revolutionary
project is as much a transformation of this circumstance as it is of
our social being, and the two are interdependent. The notion of
"social being" itself implies that we are developed through our social
existence; we are not isolated individuals, but individuals that
acquire specific potentials as well as needs through social
participation.

The revolutionary capacity of a class can't be reduced to its needs -
the effect upon it of circumstance, but must also include the
potentials for action arising from its relation of production. For
example, by not owning means of production, the working class is
liberated from that circumstance in order to strive for the kind of
society that will fully realize its social potentials.

By linking together human creativity and the material and social
circumstances in which that creativity develops and operates, we are
able to represent a class as a specific historical process rather than
as an empty abstraction or merely a function of circumstance. It
brings together the material and the social dimensions of life as
parts of one dialectical process.

--

       Haines Brown
         KB1GRM
         ET1(SS) U.S.S. Irex 482

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