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
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.