File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1996/96-11-17.131, message 87


Date: 15 Nov 96 22:14:48 EST
From: robert scheetz <76550.1064-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: In search of the Proletariate


Louis Godena,
     I agree with assessment of present-day working class: 
	 
"...not a revolutionary force,  perhaps even a counter-revolutionary force.
... I might "even go further and declare that the Western working class"does not
even identify "itself as such. The vast majority of workers think"of themselves
as 'middle class' or "as some local equivalent.    

Even, it has assumed (not unreasonably) the mentality of its oppressor, always
alert to exploit.

But is'nt this a result of defeat, not an inherent attribute?  Certainly,
in the US from Haymarket on, the owners and their managers have conceived it a
war, and had no difficulty defining the class enemy.
To this day in their inner sanctums when the talk turns to this, it assumes a
remarkable degree of ferocity.  And in some way, tho it may not signify in
today's game, don't you have to concede that, tho they were beaten soundly, the
history of the fight waged by the miners and industrial workers is an heroic
one, and worthy to be placed in the tradition 
alongside the Abolitionists and Jn Brown, and the resistence fighters
Tecumseh to Crazy Horse...all losers with modern day demoralised
rumps?




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