Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 10:51:00 -0400 (EDT) To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU From: Howie Chodos <howie-AT-magi.com> Subject: Re: BHA: Class, intentional structures Thanks, Michael, for the reply. I don't have any problems with your reading of the historical record. I'm not sure, though, exactly what theoretical lessons you would draw from it, especially with regard to the question we had been debating, the nature of class factors and their relative salience in influencing the course of events. I do get the impression that in considering actual historical events you give a greater place to the importance of the conscious intervention of people in deciding the outcome than I thought you did in some of the more condensed remarks you made in the previous post. If I may press you a bit further, I am still somewhat puzzled as to what you meant by it *not* being true to say that "in marxism, class action depends on class interest or its recognition (aka as class consciousness)." Are the various strategic mistakes and successes you identify in various past scenarios devoid of any such content? Can class alliances be forged without some sense of the various class interests at play, and then doesn't this require of us a certain theorization of the nature of these interests, of how we come to accurately perceive them (or not), etc.? You say that "the conditions of transformative social action are different in different conjunctures". This implies that, in Lenin's terms, the 'concrete analysis of the concrete situation' is critical for the success of any transformative project. This further means that our conscious intervention, or lack of it, can be decisive in determining the outcome (as your examples of 1848 and 1968 indicate). I would draw the conclusion that therefore history (or at least the process of transition from capitalism to socialism) cannot, in fact, occur entirely "behind the backs" of social actors. Radical social change is a complex, messy, unpredictable business. Success depends, in part, on how people react to the particular circumstances they find themselves in. We can't manufacture social transformation out of nothing, simply through our theoretical prescience, determination and strength of will, but nor are these factors irrelevant to the eventual outcome. It is because of the importance of these 'subjective' factors that I continue to feel that the question of whether we assign to class an automatically primary place in the determination of interests, and in our strategizing about the real processes of social and political change, remains an important one to debate. Howie Chodos --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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