Attitudes inform behaviour, behaviour has an impact, many don't own the factory but manage/oversee/behave in ways that promote the owners' interests because they aspire to those interests.
Yes, attitudes inform behaviour. I didn’t imply that I was excluding behaviour. Quite the reverse. Indeed, some behaviour must be tackled. Racist behaviour. Scabbing behaviour. Anti-social behaviour. Anti-class behaviour.
I was trying to establish terminology. When we began this exchange I thought we were using the term “class” differently (no surprise: there is confusion around it, and it’s used to mean different things), so I was trying to explain how I was using it. And I was attempting to explain what I mean by “class interests”. You correctly point out that some behaviour by working class people is against the interests of the class. Indeed so. Racist behaviour. Scabbing behaviour. Etc.
As for people who are in the coordinator class (the managers you refer to, who may not own the factory but manage on behalf of the owners), they’re not working class; they’re middle class. It’s sometimes said that Marx wasn’t clear about the term “middle class”, and while it’s true that he changed the way he used the term over the course of his many years of writing, if we take Capital vol 1 as the best statement of his analysis, we can analyse the role of the middle class – the managerial class - very clearly. (I’ve outlined it on these boards before. Here, for example:
https://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/are-these-people-middle-class.346881/page-5#post-14676967 ).
I've never claimed that the working class is uniform or homogenous, whether culturally, in taste, in belief, in personality, in attitudes. It is diverse; it is made up of individuals. But individuals who have to sell their labour to make a living.
The WC as an term is constantly used around here in an idealised, homogenous way. That's what I am referring too.
OK, I accept that. But I haven’t seen it, and that’s not how I’m using it. So we’ll leave that as something you wished to convey to thread readers rather than to me.
It is certainly true that some working class people may fight wars "for Queen and country" (often due to conscription, and in a jingoist atmosphere, mind you); vote for Tories or another of the parties that does not represent them or further their interests; hold racist views; and so on. But this does not contradict the structural analysis above: are they owner or worker?
We were talking about interests and whose interests are being supported/promoted. You asked me for examples of my point. I gave two. People need to recognise their position/interests, my examples were of those that don't.
I’m glad you gave your examples, because I wanted to understand what point you were making.
There is a conversation here I think about the fluidity or not of class lines...Are they as fixed as they once were?
What do you mean here? Blurred definitions between classes? Or movement between classes? Or something else?
It’s quite clear to me that if you work for a wage but, say, also own or part-own a company, (meaning you don’t
have to sell your labour to the owner for a living), then you’re not working class. That isn’t fluidity. It’s someone who isn’t working class.
The task for the 'left' is to restore a socialist basis to its endeavours. It is my belief that an instance of solidarity builds deeper and more lasting solidarity. That working together strengthens ties. That community self management builds community spirit. That mutual aid inspires community self confidence. That suspicions can be dispelled by these activities. Slowly, of course. But the process has to begin to be successful. It will never happen, though, if we retreat into enclaves. We can be culturally diverse and still cooperate in our class interests. Indeed, we must. But on a class basis.
I can't argue with any of that obviously, it speaks to my own attitudes and experiences of community activism, development projects, grass roots network building, localised campaigning, work interests, unionism etc.
Well, indeed.
I will also say though that just because some of us do have reason to put other aspects of our multifaceted identities front and centre sometimes it doesn't mean we are working against our class interests and are idpols, which is the line peddled around here far too often for my liking. Often thrown at me in fact by people who'd do better focusing on and sharing what they themselves are doing to address these issues instead of exhaulting others to the heights of ideological bogeymen who deserve a kicking. Fuck that right off.
Well, I’ll start by saying I have no idea what you do in your activism, and I don’t require you to prove yourself to me. That’s entirely your business, and I wouldn’t presume to pass judgement on it.
What I’m interested in is in any case not really:
what individual activists do. Rather, I’m interested in ‘the left’. I think we’ve lazily used this term to mean lots of different things, and assumed that all of it is in ideological harmony or at least pulling in the same direction. But it isn’t. A lot of what we call ‘the left’ isn’t socialist at all. (Here I’m using the term ‘socialist’ quite widely to mean ‘comes from a class analysis standpoint’. That terminology has its problems too, but all our terminology does, so the best we can do is to try to define what we mean). I think the socialist left needs to get back to doing socialism. And to recognise that not everyone we may have come to think of as ‘the left’ is actually an ally at all. Some are following a neoliberal agenda, and we need to see that, express that, differentiate our own agenda from that.
The point of this is to refocus what
I do. And to try to contribute to providing a political basis for those I’d regard as comrades to move forward from.
