File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/97-05-14.000, message 74


From: "T. Jayaraman" <jayaram-AT-imsc.ernet.in>
Subject: Re: BHA: The primacy of social class
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 13:18:18 +0530 (GMT+05:30)


Responding to all the posts on the question of class:

Perhaps it would help the discussion if we approached the question of
the primacy of class from a different angle. 

In Bhaskar's critique of Marx in Dialectic, he claims that Marx
underestimated  other dimensions of social oppression. He talks of the
"neglect of the sheer weight of the national, ethnic and the religious,
as opposed to class, differentiations that burst the Second
International asunder in 1914?" But whatever Marx's omissions on these
matters, much work under the Marxist and related labels has been
undertaken on these subjects subsequently; first primarily within the
scope of actual political organisations and subsequently in academia.

Now about nationalism the general consensus among Marxist historians, as
I understand it, is that the concept of a nation-state, or nationalism,
is essentially a development that goes with the rise of capitalism.
While some elements of what is necessary for nationalism later, like
elements of cultural commonality, or the development of a common
language etc. may have developed earlier, the nation-state
is properly a product of the capitalist epoch. 

Even on the gender question, while gender oppression predates or is
simultaneous with the coming into being of class oppression, it is
only under capitalism that we see the rise of self-awareness of a
social grouping on this issue and its consequent expression in
organisation and struggle.

 Since in the one case capitalism provides the conditions for the
existence of a social phenomenon and in the other the pre-conditions for
an awareness that leads to a social phenomenon, would we not conclude
that in some way it is 
the class structure under capitalism, or a once-removed effect of it
through the means of ideology that is responsible for these? 
And is not class structure the fundamental defining feature of
capitalism? If we do understand the nexus (unless one argues that the
connection seen is a correlation without any underlying real meaning)
then will it not in some way also influence emancipatory strategies?
The last is certainly true about nationalism as far as I can see. After
all, on the left, we have always distinguished between bourgeois
nationalism and national-liberation struggles of a more radical kind.

Or am I off-track completely?

BTW, while on the subject of Bhaskar and Marx, Bhaskar's critique of
Marx seems to me a case of passing from philosophy as the "mid-wife" of
the social sciences to actually delivering the baby!! There are several
remarks in Dialectic, ranging from the one above to the stuff on socialized
market and "to
each according to his essential needs
and innovative enterprise (whatever the hell that means!!)", that pertain
to individual sciences rather than philosophy. Difficult to take too
seriously!! (Sorry for the late comments on this. I just got hold of a
copy of Dialectics!).

Ciao.
Jayaraman.

T.Jayaraman,
Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
C.I.T. Campus,
Madras - 600 113.
India.
 


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