From: brumback-AT-ncgate.newcollege.edu
Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 19:23:42 -0800
Subject: Re: IN GENERAL...Re:  M-TH: Who is Working-Class?


Nancy wrote, Yoshie wrote, and Nancy writes again:

Nancy:
>>
>>Marx's last "However" could be introductory to anything, but the
>>tunnel-visioned workerist perspective that Carrol espouses would give a
>>doctrinaire interpretation to anything, no matter what, because workerism is
>>all he knows, it seems.
>>
>>Why is Heather's attempt to understand the working class by adding up the
>>elements of it so hopeless, so trivial, so antagonistic to marxism, to
>>historical materialism? A tried and true method of understanding is to look
>>at the parts to understand the whole, realizing that the whole can add up to
>>more than the sum of the parts. I honestly would like to know why this
>>approach is so wrong in materialist politics.
>>
>>But all Carrol has is polemics.
>
Yoshie:

What marxism teaches you is how to draw a line and take sides. Marxists
>don't "look at the parts to understand the whole." What we look for is
>*contradiction & antagonism*. In fact, the question "who is the
>working-class" doesn't interest me; the only thing that the question does
>at this moment is to reinforce the very "workerism" that you (rightly)
>think you do not want. The essence of the working class--what we are and
>what we do--is *negation*.
>
>Yoshie

Nancy again:

Okay, I can see drawing a line and taking sides: all those who are for
capitalism and all those who are against. Interests can be antagonistic, and
they are antagonistic, which is what we ought to be looking at instead of
tiresome, failed doctrines.

You are assuming that antagonism against the capitalist class derives only
from the productive role of the members of the working class: from their
physical presence at work -- regardless of what kind of work, are they paid
well or not, are there any social issues that are important to them, etc.
This kind of thinking has already been well described as "economic
determinism," and criticized because it leaves out of the picture any
possibility of consciousness, learning, awareness or choice. 

Next you'll be telling me that there is a gene for working class politics.

Nancy 





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