File spoon-archives/aut-op-sy.archive/aut-op-sy_2001/aut-op-sy.0106, message 348


From: "commie00" <commie00-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: AUT: corner store capitalists
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 11:03:43 -0400


> I think that when class analysis reaches conclusions like this - and
blandly  stated as if it were simply a matter of fact - then something is
clearly wrong. What practical use is it to characterise someone who owns a
little corner shop and makes enough just to scrape by as belonging to the
same class as a director of a multinational company?

it is of practical use to understand their relation to capital on a local
level. yes, they are much lower down the spectrum of the ruling class, but
they are ruling class. being that they are so long on the spectrum, they are
more likely to come over to our side at certain times, but this does not
mean they are suddenly working class. they have specific interests which
ties them to capital in specific ways, which is different from someone who
is a wage-slave, an unwaged worker (homemakers, students, etc.) or
unemployed.

the problem i see with a lot of people's analysis of the ruling class is
that they try to make them homogonous, but they're not. their class, like
ours, involves a great deal of hierarchy and differing levels of
priviledege.

> And why stop there - why not say that the vendors that you find along the
street in any African city are also ruling class if they happen to employ an
assistant?

i would say that, very likely, they are. for the same reasons listed above.
trying to pretend like local and small capitalists are not capitalists is
liek trying to pretend that the local bourgeoisie who is running an
"anti-imperialist" struggle is not bourgeois. its a serious mysitification
which has gotten us in trouble again and again.






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