Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 12:02:28 -0700
From: Lisa Rogers <eqwq.lrogers-AT-state.ut.us>
Subject:  Re: working-class subjectivity -Reply


I think Bryan is right [and others have mentioned the same idea],
that working class / revolutionary consciousness is a product of
capitalism itself.  It seems contradictory yet true [dialectical?]
that the processes of capitalism simultaneously obscure the true
nature of class relations, involving the workers in their own
alienation, stealing the time, energy and power to think, while that
same exploitation presses down so insistently that workers cannot
avoid becoming aware of the lies and the theft of their lives,
generating resistance and organization.

I have supposed that this is part of what is meant by saying that
capitalism generates the potential for its own destruction.  Of
course, it is also true that we should not expect any life form to
easily or willingly give up its own interests.  Including
capitalists, unfortunately.

A connection between 'objective conditions' and 'subjectivity' is
surely entailed in a materialist view.  The specifics of how that
works in a concrete situation is very interesting.

(But I'll get back to the 'theory of subjectivity' thread more
generally soon, I missed how that became 's. of working class' or
'rev. s.', but threads do diverge, don't they.)

Lisa
[darwinist]

In a thread with Hugh Rodwell, Brian Alexander wrote:
> >"Forces of production and social relations - two different sides
of the> >development of the social individual - appear to capital as
mere means,> >and are merely means for it to produce on its limited
foundation.  In> >fact, however, they are the material conditions to
blow this foundation> >sky-high." (706)  

[I'm not sure if that quote is from Grundrisse or Capital, lisa]

>>> Bryan A. Alexander <bnalexan-AT-umich.edu>  2/12/96, 08:49pm >>>
We're trying to study the process of generation of revolutionary 
consciousness, not elide or crush it.  Through the GRUNDRISSE notes
and  well into CAPITAL Marx argues for the energetically expansive,
omnivorous  nature of capital: it wants everything, and every shred
more intensely  than before.  Capital has reorganized the planet. 
Hence our insistence  on its totalizing logic.  Yet the production of
friction, resistance,  revolution is essential to this same logic.  
[snip]
[This conversation] Returns us to the importance of this moment of
subjectivity, and its inextricable involvement with objective
conditions.




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