Politics for a dummy

[TeeJay]

Try EP Thompson child....

Are we going to get anything more out of you than that?

Pathetic.

 

[The Black Hand]

Are we going to get anything more out of you than that?

Pathetic.

I'm not interested in your angst ridden crap child.

 

[TeeJay]

O Rly?

Well I am interested in hearing about the basis of your imaginary class system.

 

[The Black Hand]

O Rly?

Well I am interested in hearing about the basis of your imaginary class system.

Not mine pal.

 

[Gmart]

This thread is a classic example of how all political debates end up with a couple of eejits going on about class like it means anything.
Class gives simplistic answers to people who need them, and who don't want to really talk at depth about the issues.

 

[rhys gethin]

This thread is a classic example of how all political debates end up with a couple of eejits going on about class like it means anything.
Class gives simplistic answers to people who need them, and who don't want to really talk at depth about the issues.

No - you are taking one side there. The problem is that discussion has been replaced with name-calling. Since we are discussing politics, class is the only serious element in the discussion that I can see. The class that has 'hegemony' forces everyone else to discuss things in its terms - in a feudal society, is something 'noble'? do people have 'good blood'? and so on. If we talk about politics in the language of the owners, we will always come to owners' conclusions. You, Gmarthews, seem a sensible and reasonable person - but notice how easily you slip into their nonsense. Whatever we say about class, to suggest that the concept is meaningless, surely, is just silly? Most political discussion, for hundreds of years, has been carried on it terms of class - as, surely, you very well know? Were our ancestors all madmen then, waiting for the wise, brilliant US to come along and put them right? I do not think you really believe anything so daft!

 

[The Black Hand]

This thread is a classic example of how all political debates end up with a couple of eejits going on about class like it means anything.
Class gives simplistic answers to people who need them, and who don't want to really talk at depth about the issues.

Rhys is right - I really could not be bothered to go into detail, again, about class. Better things to do than repeat it endlessly...

 

[Gmart]

I'm sorry i disagree.

Class is simplistic and though one can go some way using it as a classification of differences, eventually it simply turns out to be too imprecise.

The world may have used to be that way (maybe) but not now.

 

[The Black Hand]

I'm sorry i disagree.

Class is simplistic and though one can go some way using it as a classification of differences, eventually it simply turns out to be too imprecise.

The world may have used to be that way (maybe) but not now.

Your views on class maybe simplistic, but that is another thing to class being simplistic which it definately is not. Have you waded through much complicated class theory? Doesn't look like you have.

 

[Gmart]

Have you waded through much complicated class theory? Doesn't look like you have.

Do you have a link in particular you would consider relevant? If so i will consider it, however the level of discussion on this website whenever class comes up goes down in quality. No one even agrees on the terminology!! Whilst the terms, if defined, lack any meaningful precision IMHO.

 

[TeeJay]

...Most political discussion, for hundreds of years, has been carried on it terms of class - as, surely, you very well know? Were our ancestors all madmen then, waiting for the wise, brilliant US to come along and put them right?...

Scientists used to talk about 'the ether' and 'phlogiston'

"The theory holds that all flammable materials contain phlogiston (derived noun form of the Greek phlogistos, meaning flammable), a substance without color, odor, taste, or weight that is liberated in burning. Once burned, the "dephlogisticated" substance was held to be in its "true" form, the calx."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

"In the late 19th century luminiferous aether ("light-bearing aether") was the term used to describe a medium for the propagation of light."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether

Things move on - but some people refuse to.

I completely fail to understand why you have chosen to drag the USA into an argument about whether class is a valid analytical tool.

 

[The Black Hand]

Do you have a link in particular you would consider relevant? If so i will consider it, however the level of discussion on this website whenever class comes up goes down in quality. No one even agrees on the terminology!! Whilst the terms, if defined, lack any meaningful precision IMHO.

Hmmm, Thompson critiqued this pov already. If you stop the class system for sociological analysis of course class is imprecise - but 'class is the thundering noise'... It is an happening. Look at that research that came out recently of how health is worse if you are from the 'lower classes'. Here's sometheroy to get your teeth into;

István Mészáros (2001) Socialism Or Barbarism: From The ‘American Century’ To The Crossroads New York: Monthly Review Press.

Also, if you are looking for meaning in class struggle I would trying Sartre first and then the situationists... Have you read their classical material? Its very good, even today.

 

[Gmart]

I tell you what i'll read yours with an open mind and you can read Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" which effectively destroys Marxism as authoritarian rubbish, what d'ya say?

Meanwhile I have time for Sartre, of course but until these books prove me wrong i will maintain my attitude that class is a simplistic distinction which has never helped.

 

[The Black Hand]

I tell you what i'll read yours with an open mind and you can read Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" which effectively destroys Marxism as authoritarian rubbish, what d'ya say?

Meanwhile I have time for Sartre, of course but until these books prove me wrong i will maintain my attitude that class is a simplistic distinction which has never helped.

I did Popper years ago, circa 1996. I agree there is every need to get rid of essentialisms and inevitability in theory, and be sensitive to the intracacies of social life...

 

[rhys gethin]

Scientists used to talk about 'the ether' and 'phlogiston'



I completely fail to understand why you have chosen to drag the USA into an argument about whether class is a valid analytical tool.

Class, unlike phlogiston, is not an attempt to explain something baffling - it has been an obvious divider at least since the rich in Athens called themselves the kaloskagathos, the 'beautiful and the good', and the democrats called them 'the fat'. The whole history of the Roman Republic, similarly, was a struggle between the senatorial class and the plebs. For me to deny the existence of class would not be to deny the existence of phlogiston but to deny the existence of fire while it was burning my hand. Most people do, very clearly, have to live on wages or some inadequate dole, and others don't - and that affects politics and everything else. I was sitting behind a duke at a local concert recently: he had very good manners, but there was no way, obviously, that I was going to make him welcome as I might some other newcomer, nor any way we were going to wander off down the boozer and discuss Mozart together. Take that as an obvious marker - class divides, always has divided and always will divide until we alter the mode of production. Come on - you know this just as well as I do!

I considered for some time whether to write 'WE' instead of 'US' there, but to hell with correctness - it looked odd!

 

[sleaterkinney]

Class, unlike phlogiston, is not an attempt to explain something baffling - it has been an obvious divider at least since the rich in Athens called themselves the kaloskagathos, the 'beautiful and the good', and the democrats called them 'the fat'. The whole history of the Roman Republic, similarly, was a struggle between the senatorial class and the plebs.

Haven't you just proved his point, It's so wooly a term you can apply it to ancient Rome.

 

[rhys gethin]

Haven't you just proved his point, It's so wooly a term you can apply it to ancient Rome.

No - class is, amongst other things, a relationship - and amongst human beings there will always be relationships of some kind. All societies beyond the very earliest and simplest hunter-gatherer ones are based on exploitation, and where you have exploitation you have class. Slaveowning, feudal and capitalist societies produce different classes, certainly, which is why their beliefs, literatures, arts and so on are different - but they are no less class societies for that, are they? Class-consciousness, of course, varies, and it often suits the book of the ruling class to suppress it as far as is possible (and they often find themselves a surprising number of Little Helpers, alas!)

 

[sleaterkinney]

No - class is, amongst other things, a relationship - and amongst human beings there will always be relationships of some kind.

And it makes sense to lump all these different individual relationships into a box marked working class or middle class does it?

All societies beyond the very earliest and simplest hunter-gatherer ones are based on exploitation, and where you have exploitation you have class. Slaveowning, feudal and capitalist societies produce different classes, certainly, which is why their beliefs, literatures, arts and so on are different - but they are no less class societies for that, are they?

Well by your own definition if they have relationships then there is class issues there, no?

Class-consciousness, of course, varies, and it often suits the book of the ruling class to suppress it as far as is possible (and they often find themselves a surprising number of Little Helpers, alas!)

Or maybe people don't like to define themselves by such a wooly term.

 

[rhys gethin]

And it makes sense to lump all these different individual relationships into a box marked working class or middle class does it?
Well by your own definition if they have relationships then there is class issues there, no?
Or maybe people don't like to define themselves by such a wooly term.

Well, if you will use woolly terms like 'middle-class' you are bound to find difficulties, surely? Going back to the point at issue, anyone who wants to discuss politics without thinking in class terms is never going to be able to make much of that discussion, because that is what it is about. If you can't stand the boxing, stay out of the ring, I say!

 

[sleaterkinney]

Going back to the point at issue, anyone who wants to discuss politics without thinking in class terms is never going to be able to make much of that discussion, because that is what it is about.

No, that is what your politics are about, big difference.

If you can't stand the boxing, stay out of the ring, I say

Bless.

 

[ZWord]

I don't think it's very constructive to base political thinking on class warfare, because it sets different groups of people against each other.

Good politics, - good government would be doing what's best for everyone not just for one particular class. Probably part of the reason for the failure of "socialism" is that it's been essentially a reaction to the property-owning classes governing society in their own interests. The reaction from socialists was to threaten to govern society in the working class's interest, and a large part of the motivation was revenge on the property owning classes.

I see the value of a class-based analysis, but not class-based solutions.

 

[rhys gethin]

I don't think it's very constructive to base political thinking on class warfare, because it sets different groups of people against each other.

Good politics, - good government would be doing what's best for everyone not just for one particular class. Probably part of the reason for the failure of "socialism" is that it's been essentially a reaction to the property-owning classes governing society in their own interests. The reaction from socialists was to threaten to govern society in the working class's interest, and a large part of the motivation was revenge on the property owning classes.

I see the value of a class-based analysis, but not class-based solutions.

Class is a nasty concept invented by the working class, eh - the capitalists being to busy waging the class war to talk about it? - Well, I know you don't mean quite that, but dearie me... There aren't any philosopher kings in this neck of the woods, and to judge by Plato's Republic, God save us from such anyway. If there were such a being He might be above it all, but oh dearie me again! I can't see how there can be other than class-based solutions myself, since all politicians belong to and represent classes.

 

[TeeJay]

Class, unlike phlogiston, is not an attempt to explain something baffling - it has been an obvious divider at least since the rich in Athens called themselves the kaloskagathos, the 'beautiful and the good', and the democrats called them 'the fat'. The whole history of the Roman Republic, similarly, was a struggle between the senatorial class and the plebs. For me to deny the existence of class would not be to deny the existence of phlogiston but to deny the existence of fire while it was burning my hand. Most people do, very clearly, have to live on wages or some inadequate dole, and others don't - and that affects politics and everything else. I was sitting behind a duke at a local concert recently: he had very good manners, but there was no way, obviously, that I was going to make him welcome as I might some other newcomer, nor any way we were going to wander off down the boozer and discuss Mozart together. Take that as an obvious marker - class divides, always has divided and always will divide until we alter the mode of production. Come on - you know this just as well as I do!

I considered for some time whether to write 'WE' instead of 'US' there, but to hell with correctness - it looked odd!

Sorry but pointing out that there is inequality doesn't lead automatically to "classes". There is a vast difference between showing that there are very rich people and very poor people with whole gradient of people and families somewhere between the two and showing that this can be resolved down into two or three "classes" that have definite boundaries, clear criteria for membership of each one, that have fixed interests and which express themselves through various meachanisms. It might be true that in some societies at various times during history specific groups of people have been given special legal status, but this doesn't prove anything about using class as an analytical tool across all societies and in any case these 'legal' classes are not the same thing as marxist 'classes' in any case.

Trying to use a cultural difference between you and 'the duke' doesn't prove anything - many people have cultural differences and sometimes at least part of this is down to wealth, sometimes down to coming from different countries, sometimes being interested in different things in life. These kinds of social differences again are not marxist 'classes', which are to do with someone's relationship to the means of production and capital.

I do not reject all marxist ideas wholesale - a marxist or neo-marxist analysis is often an interesting and useful way of cutting through an issue and looking at the economic and social fundementals of an issue - it is often very useful when studying history as it brings a very materialist and economically based perspective onto issues that have often been delat with in a 'mythological' way. However using it as an analytical tool is only useful if you make sure those tools actually work consistently, refine them to become sharp rather than blunt and are aware of their limitations - and while something might be a useful academic tool to provide an alternative way of looking at or describing something, this is a world away from basing a whole political, moral, ethical and ideological perspective on it.

 

[TeeJay]

No - class is, amongst other things, a relationship - and amongst human beings there will always be relationships of some kind. All societies beyond the very earliest and simplest hunter-gatherer ones are based on exploitation, and where you have exploitation you have class. Slaveowning, feudal and capitalist societies produce different classes, certainly, which is why their beliefs, literatures, arts and so on are different - but they are no less class societies for that, are they?

Sorry but saying class is 'a relationship' is unbelievable: it is a group of people, a discrete section of society.

All societies are based on exploitation are they? What about societies where people are entirely self-sufficient and produce their own food, clothing, tools and homes? Where property is shared and people coooperate together in all the work that is done?

You are so wedded to marxism that you are prepared to see "class" everywhere and label everything as "class" - in effect you are hallucinating it, projecting it onto everything even where it doesn't fit at all.

You also seem to want to apply the word "class" to almost anything. If that is what you mean by "class" then the word "class" means virtually nothing. Class in a marxist sense has a very specific meaning, but you seem to want to have it both ways - specifically marxist on the one hand then massively general that it applies to almost anything on the other.

After all apples come in 'grades' or 'classes' (based on size or quality). Does this mean that apples engage in class struggle and are subject to a dialectic?

 

[TeeJay]

Going back to the point at issue, anyone who wants to discuss politics without thinking in class terms is never going to be able to make much of that discussion, because that is what it is about. If you can't stand the boxing, stay out of the ring, I say!

Explain to me how marxist class analysis produces any ethical or moral principles?

Where in Marx is it explained why anyone should give a shit about anything other than their own bank balance?

Much of politics is simply a bunch of people thrashing out their differences via legal channels as opposed to beating each other up.

When a society starts resolving things through negotiation and verbally rather than physically then morality and ethics becomes very important - it becomes the basis for appeals to justice and political/parliamentary debate.

However a marxist boxer doesn't seem to have any kind of ethical or moral basis to take part in the contest. Not surprisingly it is the revolutionary marxists that 'stay out of the ring' - in some contexts (eg liberal welfare-state democracies) by withdrawing to the irrelevant ghetto of far-left fringe sects and in others (oppressive and vastly inequal dictatorships) by grabbing their AK47s and heading for the hills.

 

[rhys gethin]

Sorry but saying class is 'a relationship' is unbelievable: it is a group of people, a discrete section of society.

All societies are based on exploitation are they? What about societies where people are entirely self-sufficient and produce their own food, clothing, tools and homes? Where property is shared and people coooperate together in all the work that is done?

I have, very evidently, a bad relationship with those who pay me inadequately and interfere ignorantly with my work, and potentially a good and collaborative relationship with those who are similarly exploited - thought the first lot will, if possible, try to get us to hate and compete with one another, to make us more exploitable. There is no-one in the world I see everyday who does not belong to one of these groups: there are the capitalists and those who support them and the rest of us, and no intermediate groups at all. I didn't invent this system and am working to get rid of it.

Societies such as you describe existed very briefly in certain parts of Spain during the Revolution sparked of by the military putsch, and no-where else I've ever heard of. In the Kingdom of Heaven, perhaps? Name me three.

It is snowing TeeJay posts over here: I can only answer bits at a time.

 

[.r.u.i.n.e.d]

Sorry but pointing out that there is inequality doesn't lead automatically to "classes". There is a vast difference between showing that there are very rich people and very poor people with whole gradient of people and families somewhere between the two and showing that this can be resolved down into two or three "classes" that have definite boundaries, clear criteria for membership of each one, that have fixed interests and which express themselves through various meachanisms. It might be true that in some societies at various times during history specific groups of people have been given special legal status, but this doesn't prove anything about using class as an analytical tool across all societies and in any case these 'legal' classes are not the same thing as marxist 'classes' in any case.
.

I'm not sure what the issue is here. I reckon "class" is just short for a classification and it can be as arbitrary as you like. Sure it's got loads of other connotations, but what was the root of the word?

Classes exist in as far as the classification is a useful guide to someone's views and behaviour.

The funny thing is these days, if you take people's own account of whether they're upper class middle class or working class, then it doesn't provide a very uniform guide.

But on the other hand. If you take upper class = rich enough not to have to work at all for the rest of your life, upper middle class = working but property owning, and without a mortgage on their residence. Lower middle class = working but property owning with a mortgage, and working class = working and renting, then it starts to make a certain amount of sense.

They've always been arbitrary classifications to some extent, it's just that as the cultures of different classes developed, people reified the classes to the extent that one's class gets felt to be part of one's identity. which tbh seems a bit stupid to me.

 

[rhys gethin]

Explain to me how marxist class analysis produces any ethical or moral principles?

Where in Marx is it explained why anyone should give a shit about anything other than their own bank balance?


However a marxist boxer doesn't seem to have any kind of ethical or moral basis to take part in the contest. Not surprisingly it is the revolutionary marxists that 'stay out of the ring' - in some contexts (eg liberal welfare-state democracies) by withdrawing to the irrelevant ghetto of far-left fringe sects and in others (oppressive and vastly inequal dictatorships) by grabbing their AK47s and heading for the hills.

The people in your last sentence, obviously, share your dislike of class as a concept: a Marxist is involved in the business of convincing the working class - the vast majority - of its mission of reclaiming its own humanity by overthrowing the system. In non-revolutionary periods the problem is how not to rot intellectually like the rest of the workers' movement but to keep a knowledge of previous successes and failures, from which we can learn when the system produces opportunities once more. In such periods sectarianism is inevitable, as is ultra-leftist vanguardism (sorry about the jargon, but its stands for real nonsense and real temptations). When things change, this can fall away very fast, like the arguments between Trotsky and Lenin.

No, Marx is not into moralism, any more than is Adam Smith. If you want a religion, there is a very scholarly Muslim amongst us on Urban - try him. Capitalism robs everyone of his/her full humanity, and the problem is how to reclaim it, so tactics and strategy rule. It is the nature of the system that most people do not have large bank-balances to care about, nor are they in a position to negotiate about vegetarianism in the meat-market, so their basic morality is simple - fools try to look after themselves, like minnows amongs sharks, and the rest get organised and struggle collectively. It is all very unfortunate, doubtless - but we didn't invent the system: we just want to destroy it.

 

[TeeJay]

Societies such as you describe existed very briefly in certain parts of Spain during the Revolution sparked of by the military putsch, and no-where else I've ever heard of. In the Kingdom of Heaven, perhaps? Name me three.

I have been to plenty of places - in Africa, South America and Asia - where people live like this: not whole countries, but many rural communities where they practise subsistence farming and have little input from the outside economy.

You want to divide people into capitalists who own businesses and workers who earn wages? There are a vast number of poor people who own their own 'business' (in terms of farming, fishing, a small roadside stall, skills they 'sell' etc) - in other words self-employed. There are also many people who work for a 'wage' but who are also vastly rich and own lots of shres in their pension funds. There are also a large number of people in the UK and similar countries who both earn a more moderate wage but also have shares and savings and own their own home.

Sorry but you 'black & white' polarised view of the world is simply unrealistic.

 

[TeeJay]

I'm not sure what the issue is here. I reckon "class" is just short for a classification and it can be as arbitrary as you like. Sure it's got loads of other connotations, but what was the root of the word?

Classes exist in as far as the classification is a useful guide to someone's views and behaviour.

The funny thing is these days, if you take people's own account of whether they're upper class middle class or working class, then it doesn't provide a very uniform guide.

But on the other hand. If you take upper class = rich enough not to have to work at all for the rest of your life, upper middle class = working but property owning, and without a mortgage on their residence. Lower middle class = working but property owning with a mortgage, and working class = working and renting, then it starts to make a certain amount of sense.

They've always been arbitrary classifications to some extent, it's just that as the cultures of different classes developed, people reified the classes to the extent that one's class gets felt to be part of one's identity. which tbh seems a bit stupid to me.

The word "class" does exist. I am arguing that the marxist analysis of classes is flawed and not suitbale for basing a political ideology on.

The kinds of things you are talking about are not even marxist classes - they are more akin to sociological or market research categories and are even more useless for basing a political ideology on.

I could divide society up into left-handed and right-handed people (with a small category for ambidextrous etc) but this would also be pointless and unsuitable for basing any kind of political ideology on. So with marxist and other "classes" - yes you could try and label people with two or three or fifty "class" labels and create a theoretical model society and the economy with everyone put into one or other of the boxes you have created: but I am arguing that firstly people's relationship to capital is more complex than that therefore you can't create mutually exclusive boxes and assign people to one or other, and secondly I am arguing that a system of boxes like this is totally unsuitable for basing a political ideology on.