Ordinary People Becoming Elitist

[Jason]

What factors cause ordinary people to become elitist? In other words, they believe they have a stake in the "free market system". These people may have once stood with the poor, but now try to justify thier growing wealth. How can people on Rev Left guard themselves against such tendencies?

Note: When I say wealth it might even just be some job paying 2000 a month (some single people can live well on that amount).

Finally, I'd like to hear some opposing views on the subject from libertarians and others.

[Red Banana]

Are you talking about working class people who side with the bourgeoisie or working class people who become capitalists and then change their views to fit their class interest?

[Beeth]

Everybody wants to be bourgeois. When they realize they can't, they identify with the bourgeois - identification is a good substitute for reality. The reasons are mostly psychological in this case and cannot be explained in strict materialist terms.

[Ostrinski]

Bourgeois ideology, of course. No class society, a society of very defined antagonisms and contradictions can sustain itself without contriving the appropriate ideological legitimizations of the social system. As Marx said, "ideology is the instrument of social reproduction."

Meaning, the productive relations constitute the foundation of society and cultural and social institutions merely reflect the material state of those relations. The relations of production are commonly referred to as the "base" and the cultural and social norms and civil society as the "superstructure."

An example of this ideological phenomenon, or false consciousness as we might call it since the inherent purpose of ideology is abstraction and distortion, is the so called "American Dream" whereby the relations of the market economy are imbued with the romantics of nationalism to build an American specific ideological staple that serves to ideologically committ those that do not benefit from the market economy to the market economy.

The relations of capitalism can express themselves ideologically through various larger trends in social consciousness such as the various forms of liberalism - conservative variants, liberal progressivism, libertarianism, through fascism, even through Communism.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Would this be an example?

Perfect 10? Never Mind That. Ask Her for Her Credit Score. (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/perfect-10-never-mind-ask-015017521.html)

[Jimmie Higgins]

What factors cause ordinary people to become elitist? In other words, they believe they have a stake in the "free market system". These people may have once stood with the poor, but now try to justify thier growing wealth. How can people on Rev Left guard themselves against such tendencies?

Note: When I say wealth it might even just be some job paying 2000 a month (some single people can live well on that amount).

Finally, I'd like to hear some opposing views on the subject from libertarians and others.

If your question is, why would someone making $2000 in wages side with capitalism or even a specific sort of "libertarian" variety? It's what Ostrinski said, but on an induvidual level I think it works along the lines of stockholm syndrom. If someone doesn't believe another way of living is possible or desireable, then they will likely try and find some level of accomodation. This might mean becoming a reformist or supporting liberal politicians (as a move in the right direction). Others have been won to the idea that "reform" of Kensian instiutions will make capitalism "run smoother" and so this will give people the best atmosphere to try and make a living in. If there is a strong liberal reform or social-dem reform movement that's actually gaining, then people are more likely to turn to that sort of reformism (like in Europe in the past) - in the US where there hasn't been this traddition, it has been easier to convince people that privitization is the kind of "reform" capitalist institutions need.

Ultimately progressive or right-wing reforms just have people bouning back and forth between options within the system. So the way out of this is an indepenant class movement that can put a different option on the table.

[Jason]

If your question is, why would someone making $2000 in wages side with capitalism or even a specific sort of "libertarian" variety?

You might become seduced by the "dark side of the force", if you were single. But with a family to feed, I doubt it.

[Jimmie Higgins]

You might become seduced by the "dark side of the force", if you were single. But with a family to feed, I doubt it.Right, and even then, people who make loads more than me and maybe have some degree of professional power probably are not working in a manner that they would desire in the best of all possible worlds; in capitalism even middle class people are under strain and stressed out.

But I still think, on an induvidual level, it's not even about being "seduced" to the system - the system is just so dominant that most of the time, thinking about an alternative is almost worse for most workers (if you don't believe that alternative is achievable, at least in the concivible future) because it makes you think about the cage you have no choice but to be in. It's easier to believe you might win the lotto, than you might participate in a world-altering democratic movement. So without other options I think most people try and figure out their options given what is "possible" in non-revolutionary times.

In revolutionary times, all that goes out the window and there's a new calculus at work. If there is a strong worker's movement making gains and begining to raise questions about who should run society and on what basis, then a "new" option has thrust itself onto the world of "the realistic" possibilities. If the system itself goes into a bad crisis and it simply doesn't seem possible to have "normal stabitlity" anymore, then the question of alternative is thrust apon the whole population as people fight to figure out a workable way out of the crisis. In these times, people have to "pick sides" in one way or another and so that's why generally there tends to be low revolutionary consiousness (even where there is a degree of class consiousness) in "normal" times of stability and then huge explosions of radical sentiment in short bursts of time.

For most people, I think, it just isn't a question of what kind of system or world they want: capitalism is a daily fact. So people try and figure out their relation to it: try and reform it to something more workable for human life; try and keep your head down at work, collect a paycheck and then only really live in your own free time with your hobbies or partying or whatnot; or the can't beat em, join em approach favored by millions who dream of owning their own shop or being otherwise self-employed or just getting rich quick; and then some people internalize the myths and propaganda and believe that if only we give them what they need, the economy will run without "problems".