ContrarianLemming
19th October 2010, 09:36
1000 posts :)
This is something I wrote about liberalism and classism.
I am not surprised that there doesn't seem to be many strong opinions on it [class], liberalism has made a point to downplay class as being in the same area as racism and sexism, two things they discuss in detail. The idea that society is truly defined by it's class' and that we live in a society dominated by class, not much different to monarchy in our view.
It must seem rather alien, it's something downplayed to such a great extant in America, to the point that liberals don't talk about class outside of the most superficially insulting terms; about income, and that alone, even forced to substitute "capitalist class" for the more PC "the rich".
Because accepting class to be such a great factor in history's development pokes holes in liberalism and damages it's presupisitions of equality, because liberalism is based on maintaining class, it is a class ideology, based on "the strengthening of the capitalist system". Liberalism is one of many ideologies based around maintaining current class rule to a great extant, so accepting class as it is damages such a view, that recorded history is of oppressor and oppressed, more uniform then expected.
"It's not class that's the problem - humanity has had class and caste systems for thousands of years now - I believe they're here to stay for the foreseeable future. The problem is when the upper classes - a few tens of thousands of people - hold power to such an extent and are so far removed from what hundreds of millions of their fellow countrymen deal with." - Liberal
You think the "rich" simply haven't got empathy? They don't know the harm they're doing? You need to wake up, they know exactly what they're doing
This post is really exactly what I'm talking about, any liberal who admits that class is a problem is in an ideological crisis because it's an ideology most certainly based on maintaining the current system, it comes as no surprise that the liberal says, essentially "class is here to stay, deal with it" while they try make this little fact as easy to swallow as possible.
It just seems so ignorant of attempts at classlessness and what actually happened, I mean, take a look at Italy for example, in 1920 they had a revolution (and I'm sure you never heard this) in which the nation's economic activity was put on hold, the workers seized there means of production, set of direct democracy, formed an anti fascist militia, organized under a form of radical unionism with the Italian syndicalists, shut there managers out of the factories, elected officials.
OK that's what classlessness looks like, and what happened? Well the Italian government, in desperation, gave a whole lotta guns to fascist mobs and militias and broke up the general strikes, and voile, fascist Italy.
So it's not some inherant thing, it's that you have been sheilded from any historical look at classlessness and what happens in these situations, what we see is a conscious effort by "the rich" to maintain ower, it is no surprise that the three nations with the most substantial anarchist and socialist masses (Germany, Spain, Italy) turned to fascism, since that's exactly what capitalists do when they're in trouble. Another example would be Chile.
What we see is not inherant "human nature" issues, or people being to greedy to handle it, or to stupid. And any acceptance of these ideas just puts your whole ideology in disarray, so what happens in these situtions - and it's pretty uniform - is totally marginalized.
Solidarity
CL
This is something I wrote about liberalism and classism.
I am not surprised that there doesn't seem to be many strong opinions on it [class], liberalism has made a point to downplay class as being in the same area as racism and sexism, two things they discuss in detail. The idea that society is truly defined by it's class' and that we live in a society dominated by class, not much different to monarchy in our view.
It must seem rather alien, it's something downplayed to such a great extant in America, to the point that liberals don't talk about class outside of the most superficially insulting terms; about income, and that alone, even forced to substitute "capitalist class" for the more PC "the rich".
Because accepting class to be such a great factor in history's development pokes holes in liberalism and damages it's presupisitions of equality, because liberalism is based on maintaining class, it is a class ideology, based on "the strengthening of the capitalist system". Liberalism is one of many ideologies based around maintaining current class rule to a great extant, so accepting class as it is damages such a view, that recorded history is of oppressor and oppressed, more uniform then expected.
"It's not class that's the problem - humanity has had class and caste systems for thousands of years now - I believe they're here to stay for the foreseeable future. The problem is when the upper classes - a few tens of thousands of people - hold power to such an extent and are so far removed from what hundreds of millions of their fellow countrymen deal with." - Liberal
You think the "rich" simply haven't got empathy? They don't know the harm they're doing? You need to wake up, they know exactly what they're doing
This post is really exactly what I'm talking about, any liberal who admits that class is a problem is in an ideological crisis because it's an ideology most certainly based on maintaining the current system, it comes as no surprise that the liberal says, essentially "class is here to stay, deal with it" while they try make this little fact as easy to swallow as possible.
It just seems so ignorant of attempts at classlessness and what actually happened, I mean, take a look at Italy for example, in 1920 they had a revolution (and I'm sure you never heard this) in which the nation's economic activity was put on hold, the workers seized there means of production, set of direct democracy, formed an anti fascist militia, organized under a form of radical unionism with the Italian syndicalists, shut there managers out of the factories, elected officials.
OK that's what classlessness looks like, and what happened? Well the Italian government, in desperation, gave a whole lotta guns to fascist mobs and militias and broke up the general strikes, and voile, fascist Italy.
So it's not some inherant thing, it's that you have been sheilded from any historical look at classlessness and what happens in these situations, what we see is a conscious effort by "the rich" to maintain ower, it is no surprise that the three nations with the most substantial anarchist and socialist masses (Germany, Spain, Italy) turned to fascism, since that's exactly what capitalists do when they're in trouble. Another example would be Chile.
What we see is not inherant "human nature" issues, or people being to greedy to handle it, or to stupid. And any acceptance of these ideas just puts your whole ideology in disarray, so what happens in these situtions - and it's pretty uniform - is totally marginalized.
Solidarity
CL