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Luxury goods and abolishing social classes
by CJR
17 August 2001 23:43 UTC
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Greetings, Mike!
 
Thank you for your thoughtful critique of my posts regarding luxury goods and abolishing social classes.
 
The background of my argument relates to my many years of studying the evolution of the world system and my particular insight that Marxist analysis fails on this main issue of abolishing social classes, indeed, its raison d'etre.
 
Some of those who responded to my earlier posts seems to take an almost emotional offense that I would take a non-marxist position, subtly suggesting that the WSN forum belongs to marxist defenders. My basic response has been, "the forum itself belongs to no one, no one group, and no particularly politically correct set of views."
 
Having said this, my main objective is to refute the notion that, in a mass society, abolition of social classes is possible. (Anthropological studies show that in small societies, with populations around 200, social classes may not necessarily emerge, though in some, shamans have higher status. The study of organizations will show that corporations with 200 or less employees often function differently -- in terms of militaristic type of power constructs -- than corporations with larger numbers of employees.)
 
My second point was to point out that, historically, empirical evidence shows that efforts to eliminate social classes have required genocidal violence. I did not make this point, but it seems to be empirically true that in "pre-communist" societies -- e.g., the USSR or Cuba -- the Party becomes a class in itself.
 
If my hypothesis, "H = in mass societies, the abolition of social classes is not possible", is true, then we need to find an explanation. I found what I consider to be a reasonable explanation after studying Marxism and economics. Marx focused on ownership of the means of production. But the legal basis and actual wealth volatility of ownership has evolved since Marx wrote his major works in a different capitalistic structural environment. Instead of focusing on the means of production, I examined what would happen if we focused on consumption. (I also spend at least a year studying the theory of definition in a linguistic/philosophical context.)
 
Your main critique appears to be "Reid's argument for the inevitability of classes appears to be circular." Having studied a fair amount of mathematics, you can also say the same thing about the formula, E=MC^2. While you can insert empirical values for these variables and the constant, C, mathematical manipulation always appears to be circular.
 
I would not dare attempt to set up a similar mathematical abstract relationship between luxury goods, a consumption activity, and social classes, because the result would simply lead to guffaws, and poo-poo statements from those who disagree. But there is a category of definitions that manifest a relationship between the concepts involved. I settle with the relationship that "luxury good is a good that is accessible (or consumed" by 5% of the population". This is empirical. It is operational. You can use it to identify luxury goods. Empirical evidence will show that luxury goods changes, and what was a luxury good 50 years ago may not be a luxury good today, by this definition. And you can deduce that, given the definition, a "theorem" follows, namely, that each society has at least two social classes, if it has access to luxury goods. Another theorem follows: to abolish social classes, you must abolish luxury goods, which, I assert, cannot be done in a mass society. The final theorem that follows is: attempts to eliminate the luxury good consuming class requires violence, but once implemented, the victors become the new luxury good consuming class.
 
What I did not say in my previous posts is that, historically, luxury good distribution has occurred in different ways. Medieval aristocracy, the Hindu caste system, pre-communist socialist societies like the old USSR, and capitalistic societies have all had different (legal or informal) policies and procedures for distributing luxury goods. When you say, "We can say that the class of luxury good consumers wields power over others not in their class that is sufficient to prevent those others from consuming luxury goods," you essentially support my position, for here, you recognize the existence of at least two social classes. This is the essential point. "Power" may have several different manifestations that "prevents those others from consuming luxury goods." In short, your statement here is empirically true.
 
The rest of your critical statements, in my view, are non-sequiturs from this essential point.
 
Let me conclude that I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your argument and the civility of the exchange. This is how it should be.
 
Best Regards,
 
Charles J. Reid
-----Original Message-----
From: wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu [mailto:wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu]On Behalf Of Mike Alexander
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 6:00 PM
To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: some thoughts on globalism/imperialism & class (fwd)

Reid's argument for the inevitability of classes appears to be circular.
 
Reid argues classes are defined by differential access to luxury goods.  Elimination of classes would require elimination of luxury goods, which is impossible, so classes cannot be eliminated.
 
Reid defines luxury goods as: The operational definition of a luxury good is a good 95% of which is accessible [italics mine] to only 5% of the population.
 
The defining characteristic of a luxury good, then, is that a majority of the population is prevented from consuming that good by some force (not necessarily overt).  Consumption of luxury goods is then an act of power in that luxury-good consumers can prevent others from consuming luxury goods.  We can say that the class of luxury good consumers wields power over others not in their class that is sufficient to prevent those others from consuming luxury goods.  This means as long as the luxury consuming class retains this power there will be luxury goods.  Luxury goods cannot be eliminated as long as the luxury-consuming class (or at least its power) exists. 
 
Reid asserts that because we cannot eliminate luxury goods, we cannot eliminate the classes defined by them. 
 
In effect we cannot get rid of classes because we cannot get rid of luxury goods because we cannot get rid of classes ...  and so on.
 
Having said all this, I must agree with Mr. Reid that elimination of social classes is very likely not feasible, and probably not even desirable.  But the reasons for this are not related to luxury good consumption.
 
Mike Alexander,  author of
Stock Cycles: Why stocks won't beat money markets over the next 20 years.
http://www.net-link.net/~malexan/STOCK_CYCLES.htm
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