Nick Cohen on Thomas Frank

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

*       From: Carl Remick


I agree with your view about What's the Matter With Kansas?, AN, and I hope
LP will reply at some point.  I would welcome hearing a Marxist explanation
for the great mystery that Frank identifies -- that Kansans (and US'ers in
general) seem to be driven by phony-baloney social issues to the virtual
exclusion of being concerned about economic reality.  How *can* sheer
fantasy trump material fact that way?

^^^^^^
CB: There is this "old" Marxist idea about bourgeoisification of a certain
critical mass or layer of the working class in the richest imperial centers
with some of the super-profits, with consequent opportunism and class
collaboration. The source of the superprofits is various forms of segmented
and oppressed labor. (Profits are different from surplus-value, such that
U.S. and advantaged workers may be exploited at a higher rate, but
superprofits are made from segmented and oppressed labor)


 Carrot and stick used. Buy off some of the leaders of churches, unions,
other social and economic orgs first. Then use spot fascism to wipe out the
working class leaders who advocate class struggle. This is a long term
process, with today as the harvest of many years of work by the class
conscious guardians of the bourgeois
 order, and their assistants.