Date: Fri, 18 Oct 96 10:58:07 GMT
From: Adam Rose <adam-AT-pmel.com>
Subject: Re: A Revolutionary Class



> 
> Many thanks to Adam for his help.  Just one or two points ...
> 
> 
> It seems to me that Adam's definition of the proletariat (for which there
> is explicit support in The Manifesto) does not, of itself, do enough.  I
> like his move to get Vice Chancellors and CEOs out of the proletarian
> picture.  That most such people do not *need* to sell their labour to live
> is a useful point.  But that does not get rid of the practical challenge as
> I see it.  It's all very well reasserting Marx's basic structural class
> distinction, but things are, in sociological terms, much more problematic
> than I suspect they were in the Birmingham and London of the 1850s.
> 

Things were more complicated in London, Birmingham, and Manchester in the
1850's than a vulgarised version of Marxism might think.

In Manchester, there was a large factory proleteriat. However, this does
not exclude large numbers of people employed in all sorts of non factory
type situations. There were still plenty of skilled artisans who were,
and saw themselves as part of the working class. The putting out system
took a long time to die. Many of the Jewish immigrants of the 1880's into
Manchester were skilled working class tailors, and formed separate unions
>from the factory based textile unions you might associate with Manchester
in the 1880s. Interestingly, these unions were revolutionary unions, with a
strong anarchist current. In the Jewish Museum in Manchester, there is a
paper which looks like a hebrew prayer sheet, until you realise it is
fact a Yiddish paper celebrating the anniversary of the Paris Commune !

In Birmingham in the mid 1800's, the factory system had not been established
at all. You hard large numbers of Engineers working in small workshops.

In London, the "Manchesterism" as the factory system was first called, was
far less developed. This is reflected in the working class movement of the
time - the London Working Men's Association of the 1840's was on the
respectable right of the Chartist movement. On the other hand, Manchester
in 1842 gave us the first ever workers council.

What I am trying to say is that the working class has always never, even
in Marx's time, been a big homogeneous lump. This does nothing to alter 
the practical relevance of the basic Marxist position on the working class.

When society enters a crisis, society does polarise on class lines. Workers
in the course of their separate battles do generalise to the bigger 
picture. Socialists who organise themselves into parties which base
themselves on the revolutionary potential of the working class can have an
important, sometimes, decisive, influence on events. Etc. This is all as
true of the 1990's as of the 1850's.

As for practical advice, join the ISO.
:-)


Adam.



Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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