Re: some thoughts on globalism/imperialism & class

Greetings!

Just three comments.

1. "Imperialism" is an outdated, 19th century concept. Try "Corporate
Feudalism" in today's global climate. Study Feudalism, and see how it
applies to how corporations work today in the legal framework that enables
their activities. Study how corporations work, and see how essentially
feudal they are. But if you insist on using "imperialism" today, please
define it. Note, though, that defining it as the "highest stage of
capitalism" is nonsense, given the global corporate feudal structure of
today's political economy.

2. Forget the Marxist concept of getting rid of social classes. If you
agree that all mass societies with populations > 200 have access to luxury
goods, then there must be a way to distribute luxury goods -- artistic,
technological, or psychological (e.g., gold). This means that every such
society will have at least two social classes: those that consume luxury
goods, and those that do not. Q.E.D. In short, Marx's idea of eliminating
social classes was and still is a chimera. And no political construct can
engineer the elimination of social classes, reducing society to a single
class. Indeed, if merit is to play any role in the progress of society,
reducing all members to a single class may not even be desirable,
irrespective of the fact that this goal is impossible to achieve.

3. Class analysis is useful only to the extent that we recognize that
there are social classes and we either want to a) diminish the disparity
between said classes, or b) maintain and/or enhance the disparity. This
becomes an ethical/political problem. It seems unconscionable to me that a
policy that serves to maintain or enhance disparities between social
classes is considered morally accepable. We can only work to diminish the
disparities, with the aim of providing a living economic foundation for
all members of society, while recognizing that there is a limit that
distinguishes social classes beyond which we cannot cross. The extreme
empirical example is Pol Pot, who clearly failed in Cambodia with the only
tool available to him: genocide. Genocide is the only failing tool
available class-eliminating political practioners, who will always fail,
for it is they who will ultimately become the ruling class, consuming
luxury goods.

//CJR

On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Alan Spector wrote:

> Lenin used the term "labor aristocracy" in reference to the highly
> skilled workers in the craft areas. (Although who knows EXACTLY what
> he meant. After all, we read an English translation of his, and
> others' works, and somehow think that those exact words capture the
> essence of the original thought.)
> 
[Snip ...]

> 
> It is true that there HAVE BEEN, and are, some liberals, social
> democrats, even some who call themselves "socialists" who have used a
> so-called "class" analysis to avoid the struggle against imperialism,
> even to the point of attacking immigrants, supporting racism, etc. But
> using a Marxist class analysis does not AUTOMATICALLY lead one into
> the camp of those who support imperialism, supposedly on behalf of the
> domestic working class.  Any revolutionary struggle must make its
> first priority struggle in those places where the world capitalist
> system is most vulnerable, with the focus being on fighting in
> solidarity with those who are the most oppressed. That also means
> struggling with workers and everyone else in the imperialist
> countries, to be willing to risk what supposed "benefits" they have on
> behalf of the overall struggle.
> 

[Snip ...]
> 
> Capitalist ideology is strong, and there are plenty of low income
> workers also who abandon their class to become cops, and plenty of
> people born into low income families who abandon their class to become
> petty criminals who prey on the working class, and even plenty of
> stable, low income working class people who will support
> capitalism/imperialism/racism, though of course the higher income
> groups, on average, will be more conservative.  The danger of the
> "labor aristocracy" argument is the way that it leads into analyses
> that minimize the importance of class analysis. Class analysis is
> crucial NOT BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY CONCERNED ABOUT HIGHER WAGES FOR
> WORKERS! Class analysis is cricual because only a change that changes
> the CLASS RELATIONSHIPS in society will end all the exploitation and
> oppression that crushes and drains the lives of so many millions of
> people month after month after year after year.
> 
> Alan Spector
> 
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>