Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 03:54:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ralph Dumain <rdumain-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: Re: BHA: The primacy of social class


Howie Chodos' post is so hopelessly insipid it sadly confirms my suspicion
that Bhaskarism is a new form of singularly unarousing academic masturbation.

At 12:55 AM 5/12/97 -0400, Howie Chodos threatens
>I think that class primacy is a theroretical
>defect that mars all classical versions of Marxism that I am familiar with.

>Rather, I would
>argue that it is possible to retain most of the key insights of the Marxist
>tradition while stripping the doctrine as a whole of the negative
>consequences that accompany an adherence to the notion of class primacy.

Now for the details:

>There are, however, certain conclusions that have been traditionally
>associated with the Marxist tradition which do fall by the wayside when
>class primacy is abandoned. The key one of these in my view, though not the
>only one, is the idea that socialism represents the realisation of the
>interests of the working class as it is constituted under capitalism.

Huh?

>Rejecting class primacy does, however, mean that there is not necessarily
>any greater link between the struggles waged by the working class under
>capitalism and the process of engineering a transition towards socialism
>than there is with other kinds of struggle against oppression and
>exploitation.

This of course presumes that there are two separate entities to begin with,
the class system, and other problems.  Suppose they are not distinct, or
suppose that at any given stage, a particular struggle so impinges on the
class system, that it threatens its particular organization?  And what
social movements are capable of shaking society as a whole without a
preponderance of those belonging to them being members of the working class?

> This has important consequences for how we think about
>actively organising to bring about socialism, in particular at the level of
>politics. The Bhaskarian insight which intersects with this line of
>reasoning is the idea that nothing happens "behind the backs" of intentional
>agents.

Huh?

>With regard to people, the idea that class is primary seems to me to involve
>some version of the assertion that class interests are more important to
>people than other interests. The question of interests is a notoriously
>difficult one, but I cannot see any justification for thinking that class
>interests necessarily predominate in terms of people's individual lives.

When the above nonsense falls apart, the rest of the argument falls apart.
Now one of the elementary aspects of the capitalist system is that people
are turned into individuals competing with one another for jobs, resources,
gain, etc.  Class is most certainly a primary reality, even when one of its
defining characteristics is that it turns people into isolated individuals
who at some moment of time have greater incentive to compete than to
cooperate for common interests.  People's well being and standard of living
is an issue that always predominates, though how to sustain or improve one's
condition may not have any clear cut or definitive answer at any given time.
People's subjective interests are a product of objective conditions and
Howie's objection is nonsense.

>They may in fact predominate, depending on one's circumstances, but then
>again, they may not. How, for example, do class interests predominate for a
>woman trapped in an abusive relationship with a violent, male, working class
>spouse?

Why do violent, male working class spouses exist?  How is the existence of
such a phenomenon separable from the class structure?  What world does Howie
live in where people without power never take out their frustrations on
people with even less?  Again, useless academic masturbation.

> To demonstrate that class interests are more important to
>people than other interests we need both statistical evidence of a stronger
>correlation between class and what people actually perceive as important to
>them and a theory capable of ascertaining how and why this might be the case. 

Howie, you're a wanker.

>For class primacy to have meaning in terms of determining how people
>perceive and act on their interests it seems to me that it should manifest
>itself in the real behaviour of people. We should be able to detect the
>operation of class primacy across all aspects of social life. But if the
>countervailing tendencies are so strong that class primacy can be so readily
>brushed aside, as seems to be the case, what is it exactly that makes it
>primary?

Howie, were you brought up in the suburbs?  Don't you know anything?

>a) What is meant by 'everything'? All social relations, all thought
>patterns, all forms of interpersonal relations, all of science, all of art?
>And if class permeates everything does this mean that there is a single
>class truth about everything? How do we stop before we get to Zhdanov?

Non sequitur.

>c) Is class the only social factor which permeates everything? Are not
>gender relations, for example, as pervasive as class relations (and perhaps
>even more so if one considers that even according to the classical Marxist
>account the gender division of labour preceded the emergence of classes)?

This is assuming that gender is something separate from the class structure.

>d) Even if it is true that class permeates other forms of social
>interaction, isn't it equally true to say that class is in return permeated
>by them? Isn't class as gendered (or raced) as gender (or race) relations
>are classed?

It's not equally true.  It is true that class is gendered and/or raced.  If
you knew something about dialectical thinking other than Bhaskar's gibberish
you would not be so helpless.  For the essence of dialectical thinking is
both the distinction and interdependence of categories.  There is not one
over here, and one over there, but one social entity, which requires a
method for analyzing unity-in-distinction.  That can't be done without
understanding class first, which means not only the existence of classes,
but the mode of production, the technology, the physical material
conditions, all at once.

>other forms of oppression, based on other axes of social stratification such
>as gender, race or sexual orientation, are never necessary to the
>reproduction of capitalism. It might even be possible for a gender-blind or
>a race-blind capitalism to evolve, while there could never be a capitalism
>without the exploitation of the working class.

In theory, this is so.  That is, the logical essence of the system could
mean that class exploitation alone exists, all other things being equal.  In
the contemporary epoch of capitalism, there are in fact two coutervailing
tendencies: one which leads towards leveling out of non-class differences,
the other which reinforces racial, sexual, and ethnic distinctions in order
to divide and conquer and keep groups on the bottom from upsetting the apple
cart in a time where there seems to be not enough to go around.  However,
capitalism didn't fall from the sky; it didn't start out as an ideal system.
What clinched the system was the conquest of the non-white peoples of the
world, hence the subsequent known historical facts.

>On this reading (which owes as much to Moishe Postone as to Bhaskar) two
>factors would appear to be decisive in preparing the terrain for defeating
>capitalism, a clear definition of the alternative to capitalism that will
>allow for significant amelioration in people's lives, and a demonstrated
>political capacity to sustain a mobilisation of a majority of the population
>in order to overcome the resistance of the powers that be. 

Old saw, followed by ....

>Neither of these
>depend upon, nor are they helped by, conceptualising this process as one
>where class necessarily plays a primary strategic role.

Utter nonsense.

What useless, sophomoric tripe!



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---