Dealing With the Renegades - Revisited

[romeo2001]

i'm not sure moralising about whose riots are better and more "right" is of much particular use
In the same way that were people with a lust for violence in the poll tax riots there were in these riots as well andf in the same way that there were people who were sticking it up the arses of capitalists there would have been in this one as well.
Do people ever riot for just one reason?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

are you prepared to address the point about the economic divide between the nouveau lumpen and the working class proper - is there one, how does/should that affect the analysis, does this make them a different category from bailiffs and coppers

few people on very low incomes/benefits can survive without being drawn into some degree of criminality, whether thats not paying for a telly licence, earning a few quid on the side, selling a bit of pot or the odd bit of shoplifting - how does this affect the class consciousness of those (whom by and large) are children?

What evidence is there for that? Are you claiming that most people engage in selling pot and shoplifting?

 

[past caring]

hmm... I'm not sure that (eg.) a UDM miner in the strike was any less working class for that - he'd just be acting in a way that was contrary to the self interest of his class. Unless he's relationship to the employer materially changed as a result of his membership of a scabby union. He'd be part of the working class (in itself) but not of the political organisation developed by that class to express its political interests (for itself).

Otherwise you go down the road of saying that anyone whose behaviour or ideas you disagree with is somehow objectively less working class than you are - either lumpen or petty-bourgeois. And suggests some kind of hierarchy where one group of workers which you happen to agree with most suddenly becomes more "working class" in its outlook than another.

Eh? The exclusion is from "being part of any progressive working class project" - there's no suggestion that the scab or bailiff ceases to be working class. The point has already been dealt with.

 

[articul8]

sorry, misunderstood. Obviously I agree with that.

 

[love detective]

are you prepared to address the point about the economic divide between the nouveau lumpen and the working class proper - is there one, how does/should that affect the analysis, does this make them a different category from bailiffs and coppers

You were the one who brought it up - i don't really understand what you mean by it to be honest

few people on very low incomes/benefits can survive without being drawn into some degree of criminality, whether thats not paying for a telly licence, earning a few quid on the side, selling a bit of pot or the odd bit of shoplifting - how does this affect the class consciousness of those (whom by and large) are children?

the issue is not about whether an act is illegal or not - it's about the impact of that act on the wider working class community. Using a formal definition of criminality gets us nowhere in this discussion as it collapses into one category, acts & behaviours which can be both debilatating and helpful to progressive working class organisation

Your raising a point that doesn't exist in the analysis - no one is using legality or a formal definition of criminality to define or analysis anything - surely this much is obvious no?

 

[articul8]

So you're happy describing most of the police as working class, in other words?

The police, army, prison officers etc can recruit from unpolitical working class families - but I don't buy the full "workers in uniform" theory, there's a certain slippage in class interests that occurs.

 

[smokedout]

What evidence is there for that? Are you claiming that most people engage in selling pot and shoplifting?

thats not what i said is it

 

[Smokeandsteam]

The police, army, prison officers etc can recruit from unpolitical working class families - but I don't buy the full "workers in uniform" theory, there's a certain slippage in class interests that occurs.

Jesus wept - I know loads of lads who are in the army from Birmingham. Their families are no more or less political than any other on the estates on which they live.

 

[butchersapron]

The police, army, prison officers etc can recruit from unpolitical working class families - but I don't buy the full "workers in uniform" theory, there's a certain slippage in class interests that occurs.

Did you really

say this:

unpolitical working class families

 

[articul8]

I think highly politicised, class-conscious environments are less likely to produce recruits for the state - which isn't to say that all families whose kids don't are all super-militant or that families that self-identify as working class wouldn't also willingly see their sons sign up.

 

[articul8]

Did you really
say this:

people have greater or lesser degrees of political consciousness. It wasn't meant perojatively.

 

[butchersapron]

They might well well, do, after posting the Si stuff you have the bottle to post this:

unpolitical working class families

You need to re-read, not anyone else.

 

[butchersapron]

people have greater or lesser degrees of political consciousness. It wasn't meant perojatively.

It never is is it? Thanks for the standard.

 

[love detective]

hmm... I'm not sure that (eg.) a UDM miner in the strike was any less working class for that - he'd just be acting in a way that was contrary to the self interest of his class. Unless he's relationship to the employer materially changed as a result of his membership of a scabby union. He'd be part of the working class (in itself) but not of the political organisation developed by that class to express its political interests (for itself).

Otherwise you go down the road of saying that anyone whose behaviour or ideas you disagree with is somehow objectively less working class than you are - either lumpen or petty-bourgeois. And suggests some kind of hierarchy where one group of workers which you happen to agree with most suddenly becomes more "working class" in its outlook than another.

Do you ever fucking read what people post:-

Would you categorise police, baillifs, and serial scabs (who despite being working class in terms of having to sell their labour-power, relationship to means of production blah blah blah zzzz), as those who deserve to be part of any progressive working class project?

 

[articul8]

Families whose politics are less clearly articulated around class interests. You know what I meant.

 

[butchersapron]

Families whose politics are less clearly articulated around class interests. You know what I meant.

Fucking right i did. Enjoy the bubble.

 

[articul8]

highly politicised, class-conscious environments are less likely to produce recruits for the state.

You disagree? No, you don't. You just leapt on a clumsy expression and infer something that wasn't intended.

 

[TopCat]

I am getting a bit pissed off with all the social work speak in this thread. Keep it accessible eh?

 

[Smokeandsteam]

thats not what i said is it

What you said was "few people on very low incomes/benefits can survive without being drawn into some degree of criminality, whether thats not paying for a telly licence, earning a few quid on the side, selling a bit of pot or the odd bit of shoplifting" and what I am asking is what evidence you have for stating that everyone bar a 'few people' on low incomes/benefits is at times a petty criminal and/or minor drug dealer?

 

[butchersapron]

You disagree? No, you don't. You just leapt on a clumsy expression and infer something that wasn't intended.

I disagree full stop - it was a point beyond the way you expressed it, it was abput the assumptions behind however clumsily you posted it.

 

[articul8]

what fucking assumptions? If you want to accuse me of something, come out with it.

 

[smokedout]

what I am asking is what evidence you have for stating that everyone bar a 'few people' on low incomes/benefits is at times a petty criminal and/or minor drug dealer?

the massive over-representation of benefit claimants in the criminal justice system for a start

 

[butchersapron]

what fucking assumptions? If you want to accuse me of something, come out with it.

I did, that politics is only politics when you get to label and grade it - when people like you get to see it. You really did not read what you're demanding that others read.

 

[butchersapron]

What bodies are you on now A8?

 

[articul8]

There are behaviours which aren't compatible with holding certain ideas to be true. Like scabbing and believing in the the strength of collective w/c organisation. Obviously that's an extreme example. But in a similar but more nuanced way, other forms of behaviour can imply a particular relationship to political goals, without being expressed in overtly formally "political" ways.

All practices are capable of implying a political outlook on the world. So yes describing families as being "unpolitical" is to that extent being unwilling to see the politics that are actively expressed in that situation. So I was contradicting myself. But not out of any desire to control or determine what constitutes politics "proper", any more than does the IWCA when it refers to the "working class proper".

 

[Smokeandsteam]

the massive over-representation of benefit claimants in the criminal justice system for a start

Eh? So?

The point I think you were trying to slyly make is that all working class people bar a 'few' are petty criminals and small time drug dealers themselves and therefore would instinctively recognise the behaviour of the looters and would be supportive of it. I think this is total shite and, in fact, the opposite in every sense in the case.

 

[articul8]

What bodies are you on now A8?

Political bodies?

 

[butchersapron]

Yer

 

[Smokeandsteam]

what fucking assumptions? If you want to accuse me of something, come out with it.

My assumption is that you are a student, possibly slumming it - correct me if I'm barking up the wrong tree. My family are 'unpolitical working class' by the way. Do you think that makes them scum?

 

[articul8]

My assumption is that you are a student, possibly slumming it - correct me if I'm barking up the wrong tree. My family are 'unpolitical working class' by the way. Do you think that makes them scum?

wrong - I'm afraid. And I'm from a working class family but "political" in the sense that were active in local Labour politics - of course I don't mean people that weren't were scum. Ever.