Greetings,
Mike!
Thank you for your
thoughtful critique of my posts regarding luxury goods and abolishing social
classes.
You are welcome
:)
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.
I believe you would
make more progress developing your argument along these lines rather than
consumption. For example as population rises to the thousands or tens of
thousands a new phenomenon arises not present in smaller human groups.
The vast majority of the population are strangers from each other.
Social classes appear at just this point. Here is where one might look
to see why abolition of social classes is infeasible.
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.
The statement E=MC^2
is an identity, not a proposition, and as such it cannot be circular. If
I say "My name is Mike" and then "Mike is my name" is that a circular
argument? Of course not. You are making an argument, NOT
a statement of identity, and as such it can be circular.
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. 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.
"Accessible" is not the same as "consumed".
Ninety-five percent of lime green leisure suits are likely consumed by less
than 5% of the population. The reason, of course is that the majority
does not want a lime green leisure suit. Determining
consumption patterns is empirically determinable, but that is not
enough. How do you determine whether something is "assessible" or
not. To do so you must bring in other factors that imply
force. Consider your Rolls Royce example. Surely not
everybody who wants a Rolls can get one. But why not? Why not just
take one? The factor of prohibition, whether by social norms (stealing
is wrong) or over enforcement (I will go to jail if I take that Rolls)
comes into play.
My point is classes are about power and influence in
the society. That is, who gets to make the rules? Consumption of
certain types of goods (e.g. extremely costly feather capes reserved for
Hawaiian chiefs) is simply a good indicator of class membership. For
example finding such items amongst grave goods implies that the deceased was a
member of the upper class.
Another theorem
follows: to abolish social classes, you must abolish luxury goods, which, I
assert, cannot be done in a mass society.
One can imagine
a class society were there are no luxury goods. Class differences could
still be manifested though occupation (high status individuals get
fun occupations and low status individuals get not fun
occupations). I don't see why differential access to certain types of
goods is an absolute requirement for the existence of social
classes.
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.
This is not a theorem
since it is not derived from any of your postulates. It is simply a
statement.
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.
I said I
agree with your basic assertion that classes cannot be eliminated. I simply
disagreed with your explanation for it.