Dimentio
4th July 2010, 11:28
I think that the analysis of society - that it is characterised by a permanent class struggle - is insufficient as a basis for understanding of society. If society was indeed only and primarily composed of class struggle, then workers everywhere would literally need to be whipped to their work-places like cattle and threatened with pain and torture.
While it certainly could be described like that back in the 1840's and 1850's, nowadays conditions like that are hardly the rule (even though they do exist, in countries like Burma, North Korea, Brazil and China, and even in some illegal sweatshops in the west).
Moreover, if that statement was entirely true, we would see workers trying to achieve a revolutionary change of society on a daily basis, wanting to abolish capitalism.
Yet, what we see on a daily basis is workers going to their work, longing for their holidays, saving up for a college education for their children, working out how they should pay the bills at the end of the month, going to vote for the Democrats, the Republicans or Labour/Tories.
When workers are rioting in western nations nowadays, they are most often rioting because they want to keep benefits which the government is about to strip from them. While commendable, such actions are actions in favour of the status quo.
If the workers in general had wanted a socialist revolution, most nations would have been military dictatorships or worker democracies, since the workers wouldn't have accepted any attempt from politicians to negotiate with capitalism.
The human being is indeed a political animal, but hardly in general an ideological political animal. Rather, most humans are pragmatic and seek to improve their opportunities to lead a prosperous life.
I am not saying that class struggle isn't existing, only that the existence of the current society cannot be explained properly by just focusing on class struggle, which ultimately is a centrifugal force which is leading to greater instability.
Most people do not think in terms of how society should look like, but rather how their own lives should look like. In short, when they envision social change, they envision social change in their own lives, not in the lives of all other people.
A part of that is obviously due to conditioning from the powers that be, through education, media, propaganda, etc. But that would never have yielded such results which we see today if not people had ultimately accepted the state of existence created by the current society.
I think the idea of "false conciousness" is an excuse for imposing a totalitarian neo-platonist elite vanguard upon people, and even if it is partially correct it would be highly against any materialist conception of history to suggest that the false conciousness is stronger than class struggle.
Rather, I think that class collaborationism is the general rule for most societies above hunter-gatherer level. The reason why "cc" is such a strong force is partially based on propaganda and threats of force, but it is primarily based on the fact that people in general are concerned about their safety and the safety of their offspring, and wouldn't like to trade away a bad situation if they see a risk for further deterioration down the road.
As long as a regime built on inequality isn't openly tyrannical or insufficient, people will most likely accept it and blame themselves for not being a part of the elite. That seems to be a general rule in most societies throughout history.
This thread does not exist to advocate status quo, which obviously is unsustainable, but to try to improve our ability to understand the system and thus our ability to eventually abolish it.
While it certainly could be described like that back in the 1840's and 1850's, nowadays conditions like that are hardly the rule (even though they do exist, in countries like Burma, North Korea, Brazil and China, and even in some illegal sweatshops in the west).
Moreover, if that statement was entirely true, we would see workers trying to achieve a revolutionary change of society on a daily basis, wanting to abolish capitalism.
Yet, what we see on a daily basis is workers going to their work, longing for their holidays, saving up for a college education for their children, working out how they should pay the bills at the end of the month, going to vote for the Democrats, the Republicans or Labour/Tories.
When workers are rioting in western nations nowadays, they are most often rioting because they want to keep benefits which the government is about to strip from them. While commendable, such actions are actions in favour of the status quo.
If the workers in general had wanted a socialist revolution, most nations would have been military dictatorships or worker democracies, since the workers wouldn't have accepted any attempt from politicians to negotiate with capitalism.
The human being is indeed a political animal, but hardly in general an ideological political animal. Rather, most humans are pragmatic and seek to improve their opportunities to lead a prosperous life.
I am not saying that class struggle isn't existing, only that the existence of the current society cannot be explained properly by just focusing on class struggle, which ultimately is a centrifugal force which is leading to greater instability.
Most people do not think in terms of how society should look like, but rather how their own lives should look like. In short, when they envision social change, they envision social change in their own lives, not in the lives of all other people.
A part of that is obviously due to conditioning from the powers that be, through education, media, propaganda, etc. But that would never have yielded such results which we see today if not people had ultimately accepted the state of existence created by the current society.
I think the idea of "false conciousness" is an excuse for imposing a totalitarian neo-platonist elite vanguard upon people, and even if it is partially correct it would be highly against any materialist conception of history to suggest that the false conciousness is stronger than class struggle.
Rather, I think that class collaborationism is the general rule for most societies above hunter-gatherer level. The reason why "cc" is such a strong force is partially based on propaganda and threats of force, but it is primarily based on the fact that people in general are concerned about their safety and the safety of their offspring, and wouldn't like to trade away a bad situation if they see a risk for further deterioration down the road.
As long as a regime built on inequality isn't openly tyrannical or insufficient, people will most likely accept it and blame themselves for not being a part of the elite. That seems to be a general rule in most societies throughout history.
This thread does not exist to advocate status quo, which obviously is unsustainable, but to try to improve our ability to understand the system and thus our ability to eventually abolish it.