Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 10:15:08 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis R Godena <louisgodena-AT-ids.net>
Subject: M-I: Re: Feeding the poor



Roxanne G writes:

>what is the alternative to the bloating of the repressive State in view of
>Left's demands for greater intervention?...The working class is, perhaps,
>completely helpless in envisioning an agency of amelioration outside of a
>powerful and omnipotent State.  And, what of your [remark] that the "poor
>can never be an effective constituency of a Communist society?...


Well, that is to say that the "poor" as we know them in the United States
can never be more than a drag on the productive capabilities of a
transitional socialist regime.  The "poor" in the West are qualitatively
different than, say, the "poor" in Peru, or the "poor" in Afghanistan.
There, "poor" and "working class" are more or less co-extensive, even if
"working class" means rural dweller or peasantry.  In the G-7, the "poor"
have been effectively lumpenized.  Insouciant, resentful, and depolticized,
they are congenitally incapable of the self-discipline and determination
necessary to become an independent force, much less a ruling class.  

Why is this?  Probably because it is easier to get rich in America than
virtually anywhere else, those who are "poor" (that is, those unable to win
the basic necessities of existence) suffer from some innate defect.  This
could range from simple laziness, stupidity or dysfunction (such as the
inability to negotiate the stresses of day-to-day life) to family or
community traditions which mitigate the individual's capacity to solve
problems in a complex and frequently contradictory society.  I think it
unfortunate, especially, that our Left has never addressed the element of
fear which it so effectively inculcates into the consciousness of the poor;
fear of God, fear of the law, fear of expressing one's true feelings about
one's capabilities or desires, etc.  It is this generalized feeling of being
afraid that is the single most potent enemy of the self-actualization of the
poor in our society.  It is a lethal weapon of self-destruction that
effectively abides and perpetuates the injustices visited upon this class
cruelly and perennially in our society.

The answer for the poor, it seems to me, is not to make them comfortable in
their impoverishment, but to drive them out of it.  No society is going to
prize, or even find much use for, the social qualities that the Western poor
possess in such abundance.  Nor are they going to be the agency of their own
salvation.  Like the Western working class, with whom they have a distinct
but incestuous relationship, they are going to have to be driven out of
their malaise by cataclysmic events, which are themselves largely the result
of the agency of others.  What precise forms these events will take is, to
me, a subject of far greater interest than the one that engages us now.

Louis Godena     




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