From: wdrb-AT-siva.bris.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 14:02:51 GMT
Subject: Re: M-I: Academic Marxism


thanks for your long and detailed re-buttal Andrew.
I am not trying to argue that academics are not
'workers'in a general sense....they clearly work and
they work for a salary. I am not arguing that academics
are capitalists.....very few live off the capital they own.

My concern is that there are significant political and social
differences between what may be called 'the middle classes'
and 'the working classes' (academics, lawyers,doctors as against
factory workers, manual workers, truck drivers) and that these
differences stem from the fact that the middle classes are paid
more money.

The problem with insisting that all people have to be lumped
into the proletariat of the bourgeoisie is that this excludes
the possibility of any more detailed discussion of class
relations. And, certainly in the UK (perhaps not in the USA),
the social and political divisions between the working class
and middle class (in the labour movement between the
working class and leftwing academics) are indeed significant.

Returning to a material analysis, I am still not clear from
reading you text if you believe surplus value is extracted
>from university academics or not. I am aware though from
Yoshie and others that the regime in US Higher Education
where much teaching is done by unpaid or lowly paid
academic assistants means that a swathe of US academic
folks probably consider themselves to be nearer to the
working class than in the UK. In general, I think
the social divisions between white and blue collars are perhaps
not as strong in the USA than the UK.

But relative wages are of critical importance -
a fact blindingly obvious to working class people
and embarrassingly ignored by middle class people


cheers etc

will brown


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