File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1998/marxism-thaxis.9801, message 424


Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 12:58:01 +1100
From: Rob Schaap <rws-AT-comserver.canberra.edu.au>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Culture, democracy and class


G'day Hugh,

You do me a disservice!

>Now if Rob's a proletarian (owns nothing but his -- in this case relatively
>skilled -- labour power) and he's dissatisfied and wants more than this
>society can give -- why shouldn't other proletarians be just as
>dissatisfied or even more dissatisfied?

I am a proletarian (I've a white collar sitting on my neck, and I know how
to spell some big words, but I earn less than my mates who remained
brickies' labourers when I quit, the most expensive commodity I own is a
$3000 1983 Ford Falcon sedan, I am not up to a Canberra dinner party
without embarrassing self and spouse with absent-minded obscenities and
contentious politics, and would still be sinking piss by the gallon at the
bar, with my butch brickie mates, if I could afford it - is that what you
really mean by prol?).  And I'm sure many others feel as I do.  We're
talking about what most of us are prepared to do about it, and why/why not.

>I see problems of a) class democracy and b) control of public opinion  as
>central here.

So do we all.  I was not calling upon my culture (by which I mean the
hegemony within which I operate - one which undoubtedly sometimes regulates
me without my knowledge) to prove anything other than the importance of the
revolutionary-pedagogy-by-reform  / parliamentary electioneering etc
argument I've been pushing for some time.  Our party has tens of thousands
of brochures about the place in Canberra (we're standing candidates in the
territorial election) which make exactly the points Marx makes in 'The
Jewish Question' and gives those points meaning with reference to Canberran
issues.  I don't know how many people read these things, but it's a lot
more than the number of Canberrans who have read 'The Jewish Question' (one
of my absolute faves, btw).

>So why should Rob treat any claims made by such a biased institution as
>significant objections, except in the sense that they reveal class
>interests and can call on state thugs to "persuade" people who disagree.

And that they're in the hegemonic ascendancy, and therefore a central focus
for practical counter-hegemonic action of the type available to a socdem
party at election time.

>But this is not the sense in which he's arguing.

I am, you know.

>Perhaps Rob's beginning to see the feasibility of this kind of voluntary
>discipline on a small scale, but still can't imagine it working on a larger
>scale. This is just the class enemy blinkering his eyes with its
>definitions of what is feasible or not -- and the mechanisms of this are
>the same as I pointed out above.

Well, my take on this is in the earlier posts between Dave and me under
this thread.  I do take a 'many socialisms' view, I do believe Comintern
orders to the German left were inappropriate, I do believe DC is always
amenable to capture, and I do belong to a party branch which precisely
practices DC throughout this election and has never heard of the term.

Cheers,
Rob.


************************************************************************

Rob Schaap, Lecturer in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia.

Phone:  02-6201 2194  (BH)
Fax:    02-6201 5119

************************************************************************

'It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have
lightened the day's toil of any human being.'    (John Stuart Mill)

"The separation of public works from the state, and their migration
into the domain of the works undertaken by capital itself, indicates
the degree to which the real community has constituted itself in
the form of capital."                                    (Karl Marx)

************************************************************************




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