The Idiocy of workerism

[A.J.]

One of the consistent features of the so-called "left" in this country[Great Britain] is it's workerism.

Firstly, on methodological level it's erroneous on account of it's obvious reductionism.

Moreover, in a post-industrial society like contemporary Britain - where the workplace can no longer be considered the principal arena of class struggle - it's a particularly absurd fetishism.(anyone familiar with the history of the British labour movement will know it's not exactly most combative in the world, anyway)

Are these idiots living in a 1970s time-warp?

[Guardia Rossa]

So...?

Brits should do what?

Say the bourgeoisie are Normans and culturally fight against their yoke?

[#FF0000]

Moreover, in a post-industrial society like contemporary Britain - where the workplace can no longer be considered the principal arena of class struggle - it's a particularly absurd fetishism.

I agree with you but can you expand on this? Why wouldn't you say the workplace is the principal arena of class struggle? What could be considered the principal arena, then? Is there one, even?

[ckaihatsu]

I agree with you but can you expand on this? Why wouldn't you say the workplace is the principal arena of class struggle? What could be considered the principal arena, then? Is there one, even?


There's a lot of the workerist mentality around here, too -- my take / pet theory is that it's a convenient kind of moralism that can be readily customized to the individual, in an era of societal -- and even civilizational -- crisis, so as to forestall more general analyses, like that of class.

Any given person these days could ask 'What are we working *for*?', and the typical answer *should* be 'To expand the economy, for growth', or 'So that your children can live in better conditions than your generation' -- but these reasonable social expectations are *far from assured*, with a stalling and declining world GDP, and with generally stagnating and falling standards of living for workers worldwide.

So the *workerist* attitude then falls back onto facile, individual-blaming arguments like 'Maybe you need to work more', or 'Improve your educational credentials', or anything else that just adds into the overall rat race, in lieu of taking on our current social condition in a mass-*conscious* kind of way.

[Comrade Jacob]

I agree with you but can you expand on this? Why wouldn't you say the workplace is the principal arena of class struggle? What could be considered the principal arena, then? Is there one, even?

The pub?

I still don't really click with what the OP means.