Date: Thu, 21 Jul 1994 15:59:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alex Trotter <uburoi-AT-panix.com>
Subject: class



Concerning the question of class: Is the industrial proletariat really 
the revolutionary class that represents the potential of the human 
community? Marx certainly thought so, but the anarchists had different 
views on this. The anarchocommunists Bakunin and Kropotkin tended to 
uphold pre- or nonindustrial social relations (i.e., medieval guilds, 
agrarian communities) and their politics found favor in some of the less 
industrialized countries of Europe such as Spain and Italy. Proudhon was 
not a booster of industrialism either. The individualist anarchists were 
not well disposed to class politics. Only the anarchosyndicalists, a 
tendency that developed later in the 19th century, seemed to agree with 
Marxism that industrial development was progress because it created the 
proletariat, the only 'truly' revolutionary class.
	Most people living in the world even today, after 200 years of 
industrial revolution, are not workers, but rather peasants. The 
traditional Marxist view of peasants and farmers (Lenin and the 
Bolsheviks, echoed by ultralefts and councilists) is that they are 
incapable of an independent perspective, and are fated to play a 
supportive role vis a vis one or the other of the 'historical classes' 
(i.e., bourgeoisie or proletariat). This was a big bone of contention in 
the debates that went on in Russia late last century between the MArxists 
and the Populists. Do Marxists today advocate the wholesale 
industrialization of the 'Third World' in order to create a proletariat 
that will supposedly be the salvation of humanity? Is this a smart thing 
to do from an environmental perspective, let alone a human one? Might we 
not look instead to agrarian-type revolutions, such as, for example, the 
Zapatistas in Mexico? 
	And even in the 'West' (meaning the metropoles of capital--N. 
America, W. Europe, Japan, Australia, etc) do we not see a quantitative 
preponderance of social strata other than the classical industrial 
proletariat (new middle classes, service industry workers, etc)? Perhaps 
the revolution will take place immediately on the level of 
"species-being" rather than based on the sociological category of class.
Comments, anyone?

--Alex Trotter


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