File spoon-archives/marxism-feminism.archive/marxism-feminism_1997/marxism-feminism.9710, message 35


From: cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu (Carrol Cox)
Subject: Re: M-FEM: Feminist mailing lists
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 12:32:50 -0500 (CDT)


Wojtek Sololowski writes:

> >SNIP>
> Which raises another interesting question: to what extent the Left discourse
> is (willingly or unwillingly) a part of the much wider process of
> manufacturing commodified cultural identities for the consumption of college
> educated middle class audience in a position to pay for cultural products,
> rather than an attempt to influence public discourse, or people outside the
> mainstream?

I am almost always disturbed by the appearance of the term "middle class"
in Marxist discourse; I don't think there is any group in the developed
capitalist world that this label fits.

	The popular media refer to unionized factory workers as 
"middle class" (in terms of earnings) on many occasions; at other
times it is equivalent to anyone whose work does not dirty theri
hands. If might refer to small capitalists and petty producers
(including independent professionals), but then despite the 3
extra words, I think small capitalists and petty producers is
more accurate and less confusing.

	I would assume that about 80%+ of the U.S. population
are *working class*. I would assume that something near to 98% of
the students at Illinois State University (from which I recently
retired) are working class (the major exception being the sons,
mostly sons, of rather wealthy central-illinois farmers and
a scattering of children of small (very small) capitalists.

	I don't know how students at Johns Hopkins would be
classified; presumably a far greater percentage of children
of small (not so very small) capitalists and professional and
a scattering from the core capitalist class?????

	But I would agree that one of the ways a college education
at places like ISU is to make its students *feel* "middle class"
rather than working class. In that sense the entire educational
system functions analogously to the practice in various enterprises
of labelling a substantial proportion of the laboring force as
"supervisors" and therefore "management." The Normal IL firefighters
strike 17 years ago was over precisely this. (THe whole force
was jailed for 40 days.) The union (including captains and lieutenants
themselves) claimed captains and lieutenants should be part of
the union; the city wanted them to be "management" (and thus
constitute a built-in strike-breaking force). The union won that
fight.

	This does not bear directly on Wojtek's argument, but I
think it is important. Margaret Morganroth also used the term
"middle class" in her most recent post, and it bothered me there
also.

Carrol


   

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