Workers .v. Students

[MKS]

Reading some threads lately has made me aware of another division amongst socilaist and other leftists ( i.e. anarchists). The division between workers and students.

I did attend University for 2 years, but left because I didnt want to start my "adult" life in debt, also because I could educate myself outside the capitalist "liberal" environments of most modern U$ Universities. While in college I began to study Marx and other economic theorists, and that is where I can trace the beginning of my "conversion" to Socialism. But many of my friends pointed out that I could not really know what it is like to be a worker because I've never really had a job (and not just an after school job). I agreed with them and let my socialist inclinations lapse until I left college to work.

Now that I am working 40-50 hrs weekly, in a factory, I feel more comitted to Socialism., and often wonder if students can really relate to a working person. I often feel resentment towards students who "preach" their idealism from their comfortable dorm rooms and lecture halls, while I work my life away just to pay rent and feed myself. Simply put, I question thier committment to a cause they are so distant from. To compare it to something, its like liberal deomcrats who decry homlessness and poverty from their million dollar mansions (i.e Kennedy, Kerry, Clinton etc.).

Now I know some students work really hard to pay for thier education, and of course they are true working people whose committment should not be questioned.

Is there a division amongst students and workers, and is the division great? Or am I just imagining things?
es possible.

[Paradox]

I'm a student at a community college and I just work weekends, so I don't know what a 40 hour work week is like. But I'm sure it would -as it's done for you- only strengthen my Socialist/Communist beliefs. I don't know if there's a division between students and workers, but perhaps there is. I would think that those who have to work to pay for their education would relate to workers much more easily, because they understand the stress, etc., that goes along with being a worker. On the other hand, those students from more well to do families, who don't have to work to pay for their education, might find it a lot more difficult to relate to workers. To what extent this would exist, I don't know.

[NovelGentry]

Is there a division amongst students and workers, and is the division great? Or am I just imagining things?

I'm not sure that this is unique to students. There are a number of leftists who live comfortably enough not to understand the struggle from that perspective, myself included. Although many of us are not pressed individually in this fashion, we have often seen this struggle first hand. It occurs within our lives, within our families, amongst our friends, throughout our neighborhoods, or even a few miles down the road. The conditions of wage-slavery surround us, force us to be aware of them, and beckons an answer to the question: why?

To sufficiently answer, are these people committed enough? You need to ask the people. You need to understand their lives and how they relate to the struggle, the same way they may have taken it upon themselves to undertand your life and how you relate to the struggle.

[redstar2000]

The word "student" like the word "worker" covers a lot of territory.

I've known some "radical" students who lived "pretty high on the hog"...I mean they lived a lot better than I ever have. And others who worked 20 or 30 hours a week and still went to school full-time and were still politically very active -- I figured they just didn't sleep. :o

I think there is a "class bias" that results from the place you find yourself on the social pyramid. Crudely speaking, the better off you are, the less radical you are.

But it's not an "iron law" and I wouldn't just dismiss someone because of their money or their standard-of-living; I'd wait to find out what they actually thought about things...and then I'd dismiss them. :lol:

Seriously, most of the time, I think you'll find it's true. The best young student lefties who I knew back in the 60s and 70s were from working class suburbs and usually worked full-time during the summer months to help pay for their education.

There were exceptions to that...but not many.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Colombia]

When the student gets into the working world and loses touch with his communist side, than we will know whether or not he truly was a communist or not.

[Hiero]

Is there a division amongst students and workers, and is the division great? Or am I just imagining things?

I would say yes. I think its part of the students not knowing there place. The students must accepted and support the worker leadership, they can never try to be leaders over the workers or try to compete with different ideologies.

The reason being that student and others of middle class have made a conscious choice to support the woker movement, the workers have no other choice but to be apart of the workers movement. At times they need to fight for their workers rights, and they must be the base for leadership.

The best students can do is to aid the worker movement, join their parties and help run their campaigns, but always be aware that they are the students not the workers themselves.

[aberos]

i would first like to point out that both of the castro brothers and che came from affluent families and had pampered childhoods. does this mean that they are not real communists? they are not real communists because they did not throw away their educations? while i agree with you in saying that the american university system (much like the systems in many other countries) is more about them making money off of the gullible student rather than learning, it is a commitment that is made; and, furthermore, at its end the student gets a piece of paper which is far more powerful in american society that any experience in any factory.

i am a student. and although i do fit into your exception of the rule because i work full-time (40-60 hours) while going to school full-time and i pay for all of my expenses, i think that it is unfair to say that if you do not break your back, you are not worthy of calling yourself a communist. as novel gentry said, even rich folks are privy to the sight of gross injustice in a world so full of ugliness. take for example angelina jolie. she was raised in a very rich family, but yet she still donates a huge amount of her time and money to assisting the poverty stricken throughout the world as a goodwill ambassador for unhcr. anytime you start creating a box that people have to fit in to suscribe to your belief, you run the risk of disenfranchising your brothers.

if people truly want to be a part of something, then let them. if they decide later on that it is not for them, at least we as a minority society of leftists have been privy to what little impact they may have made in the meantime on our cause's behalf.

[aberos]

eliminate the hate

[Edward Norton]

Well Im in the process, this week actually, of leaving university due to the fact that its boring, unable to motivate me and I feel that work experience counts for more than some piece of paper.

I have worked full time though, both times in the two year break I had from A levels and university. One job was a salesman and the other in a factory, packing the stuff after it was all made.

I agree that being a worker does make you much MORE aware of capitalist exploitation than being a student. Altough from working full time I discovered why so many people find it repetitive and boring, but now I figure that it beats uni in that at least I can motivate myself to go to work, unlike uni where after the 1st year I more or less stoped going to lectures.

At least you get paid at work and can travel, live in your own flat instead of with your family and after paying your bills enjoy what money you have left. Being in university you just get into more and more debt!

I can't speak for the US but in Britain, MOST students don't give a fuck about capitalism, oppression or any type of workers revolution. Most just talk about what they will do when they start their own business or get their first mortage, gone are the 60s radicals. On the whole most students are reactionary and dare I say it right wing (including the social democrats/liberals and their ilk here as well).

Then that VERY SMALL minority of so-called radical students that do exist, most of them are with the SWP (UK) and given how reformist and anti-revolutionary the SWP have become, we can write them of as well!

[MKS]

Quote from aberos
anytime you start creating a box that people have to fit in to suscribe to your belief, you run the risk of disenfranchising your brothers

I couldnt agree more. While I do think that the comfort of the burgoise student does not make a comitted socialist, I would never count a persons worth to the movement based on thier present state, rather we should judge them on their intent and future actions.

Many of the "hippies" of the 60's turned into Yuppies of the 80s, this is what I am afraid of, those who call themselves Socialist because of some idealism borne in the lecture hall of some "liberal" professor. It is my expierence that such idealism often dissolves in the "real" world.

I know from working, it is hard to think of any cause, almost all of your thoughts and motives are contrived for surivial, to pay rent, pay for gas, all of your work is only to sustain yourself so you can work the next week, the next month, the next year. Idealism is a privlage of the burgoise, or it does seem like it, from a workers perspective.

Quote from aberos

at its end the student gets a piece of paper which is far more powerful in american society that any experience in any factory

Powerful in our system of course, because thats the way it is set up. Anyone can pay for an education. The expierence of the factory, the knowledge of the pain of labour, is more useful to the revolution than a degree from a college. How can a degree realte to a workingman, it cant. I think that is where the division is created, the idea that a degreed student is better than a worker, the attitude of, "come let me show these poor workers real equality, let me, the degreed student, show these poor un-educated "peasants" the way to freedom."
While the student might have good intentions it comes off as arrogant and elitist. how can a student preach about the injustices of the labour system without really feeling it himself?

Che and Fidel both were sons of privelage (compared to other South American citizens.) Che traveled, worked and lived among the poor, it is there were he found his true revolutionary "spirit". Both men fought and risked death for the principles of liberation and equality.

[Vanguard1917]

I'm at university in Britain and i am yet to meet a Marxist student in any of my lectures or seminars (and i study politics!). Correspondingly, I am yet to meet a "proper" right-winger. The truth is that the vast majority of students do not have any real conflicting political beliefs whatsoever (even politics students). A culture of postmodernist, relativist thinking has taken over the universities - from professors to students. No one has a clear political opinion that they're willing to stand by. And, in my opinion, this merely reflects the fact that there is no real struggle within society as a whole. At a time when the workers were engaged in a militant struggle against the capitalist bosses, students alligned themselves with one side or the other. This struggle within society has ended, and students have become more and more politically lost.

[Vanguard1917]

Just to emphasise this point, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) organised a rally against our uni vice-chairman (who supports fees) and literally 19 people turned up. The Conservative Party student society organised an anti-EU rally on campus and a friend told me that a handfull of people attended (including those who actually organised it).

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

It is arguable that students are enguaged in the production of intellectual capital, and viewing them as alienable from the workers movement at large simply reflects a tradition rather than a real material difference.
Thus, politics within the student movement, and among individual students, tend to be similar to those among working class in general. Some are suckers for bourgeois cultural-ideological domination, and some are clued in. Whateva.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

No, I think that the difference is really class. A workingclass student has to work to pay for his study, thus he is more aware of capitalist exploitation.

[aberos]

i agree in saying that a student such as myself and many others is given the chance to truly test their roots in communism through manual labor and extended exposure to the fiendish system known as capitalism, but i think that even the bougeois student can develop strong ideals and beliefs. though they have not had to test them, they will eventually. until them, all we can do is hope to impassion their souls as much as possible so that they will be better armed to face the oppresive forces of capitalism with uncurbable contempt and enmity. ideals are not meaningless because they fuel our actions. ideals without action are meaningless.

and there is a struggle in the political world. look all around africa and la and you will see open revolution and struggle. and, moreover, look in your backyard and see the capitalist encroachmet upon our fair planet. this is the struggle in its gravest state. it is now that action and rebellion is most necessary.

and i agree in saying that working is a much more valuable experience than going to school, but i do stand to my point that the piece of paper is more extrinsically important in american society today because it is that piece of paper which gives a person the chance to create clout and power. i hate college with a burning passion, but i realize that i must finish if i plan on staying in capitalist society for any length of time. although i have been giving serious consideration to defecting to cuba, as i am still unsure, i am still in college. dropping out of college in american society is by no means damning, but it makes life harder in the long run.

[Black Dagger]

how can a student preach about the injustices of the labour system without really feeling it himself?

I understand the 'point' of your statement, nothing replaces experience, but saying that people who don't work in factories or sweat-shops cant 'preach' about such exploitation is akin to saying that film critics are not in a position to comment/review/criticise films because they've never made a movie themselves. Experience is very important, but if experience was the the criteria for having 'valid' opinions a lot ideas would never see the light of day.

If 'the workers' are tied up by an exploitative labour system, struggling from day-to-day, do they have the leisure to stand on street corners propagating ideas? To organise rallies/direct actions/speak-outs/protests? Of course a lot do (or their wouldnt be working class movements!), but surely the revolutionary movement should take advantage of the 'free-time' of middle-class students, i mean, if they cant contribute experiential knowledge, they can contribute in other ways, that utilise the resources they have at their disposal, primarily time but also their access to large populations of young people (university!).

Again, im not saying that this replaces real experience of exploitation, but it shouldnt be de-valued out-right. That lends us to an unhealthy 'deification' of working people, and demonisation of everyone else, that's not constructive (what of 'aspiring voters' that the (neo) liberals always talk about, the working people who 'want better', ie. want to one day exploit others too!). But at the same time, there is a very real conflict between a lot of student 'radicals' and their working class counter-parts. Middle-class radicals are due to their own class roots, more likely to become reformist over time, with their revolutionary ideals being slowly eroded by the comfort of their own class. Revolution is 'not gonna happen any time soon', and they'll just slip back into a life (and class) that will insulate their future, that is 'safe', whereas workers and working class students dont have the same 'safety net' in place to catch them whenever the revolutionary movement becomes 'stale' or 'boring', because that's their life.

But because there is this difference, there does need to be 'working student' organisations, and worker/student alliance organisations, that can serve to not only give students and insight into the lives of 'real' working class people, but to help further radicalise students more broadly.

[MKS]

Of course the student can speak out against oppression and they should. But will they be as comitted when things get tough, what is to stop then from abandoning the revolution for the comfort they knew before.

[Hyacinth]

Intellectuals count as a class onto themselves. They do not share the interests of either the current elite or the masses of workers. For the intelligentsia a commitment to socialism is a moral commitment, not one born out of necessity. Socialism is what they see themselves as handing down to the masses, who are unable to themselves establish a socialist society. In the eyes of the intelligentsia they are to serve as benevolent despots to the irrational masses, in effect they see themselves as playing the role of Plato’s philosopher kings in any regime that they seek to establish. Thus the sort of socialism that the intellectuals are interested in is not the same sort of socialism that non-intellectuals argue for.

[JazzRemington]

I think students should be considered workers. Granted, I am currently a student but am about to enter the work force (go IWW!), but I've seen what other students have to go through in order to receive their education. It is rather strainuous(sp) and physically and mentally consuming (especially when they have to stay at the school all day researching a paper). Many times they HAVE to work in order to meet tuition, book, and room/board costs (as stated the above posts).

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16 2005, 11:00 PM
Intellectuals count as a class onto themselves.
Uh . . . no they don't. In capitalist society intellectuals don't have any sort of independant relationship to the means of production. They either work for a pay-cheque and create value like most of us, or they own sufficient capital to support themselves (either as bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie).

As for students, they present an interesting problem that I hadn't thought about prior to my last post . . . they are enguaged in the production of necessary intellectual capital, but remain uncompensated for it. They are like the cow being turned into steak . . . not properly proletarian, but certainly not bourgeois (and obviously having an anti-thetical set of interests, if often unrealized). At least, that's how it appears to me right now . . . thoughts?

[Hyacinth]

Originally posted by Virgin Molotov [email protected] 17 2005, 08:22 AM
Uh . . . no they don't. In capitalist society intellectuals don't have any sort of independant relationship to the means of production. They either work for a pay-cheque and create value like most of us, or they own sufficient capital to support themselves (either as bourgeoisie or petit-bourgeoisie).
The intellectuals are the ones that develop all the theories and technology that ends up creating the means of production. They are its source. The intellectual history of mankind rests upon the shoulders of very few individuals, and even today this remain true; the advanced made are done by few individuals. They are of course developed by the capitalist class and made practical, but nonetheless without the intellectual foundations there would be no technology. Without intellectuals you would not have capitalism, we’d still be stuck in feudalism. It is scientific advancement that made possible the creation of the present means of production and thus enabled capitalism. To reduce the intelligentsia to either the proletariat or the bourgeoisies oversimplifies things. In a sense they do belong to either the proletariat or the bourgeoisies in that they may be waged laborers (being paid for the intellectual labor), or they may be owners of means of productions themselves. But the fact remains that the intellectuals do not have the same class consciousness as either the proletariat or the bourgeoisies. They see neither the proletariat or the bourgeoisies as capable of governing, and the interests of the proletariat or the bourgeoisies are not the interests of the intellectuals. They are not interested in the mundane and the material, they would much rather spend their time in intellectual labor, without regard for whether it can be applied or not. Both the bourgeoisies and the proletariat, on the other hand, are more interested in the practical applications of the developments of the intellectuals.

Ultimately I do not see the intellectuals siding with the proletariat for any other purpose than to take power themselves, for the supposed good of everyone. Because in their eyes the proletariat are unfit to govern themselves, just as the bourgeoisies are unfit to govern.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hyacinth, this is not actually so.

Read Clifford Conner's book "A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and "Low Mechanicks""

http://www.innovationwatch.com/intellicosm..._1560257482.htm (http://www.innovationwatch.com/intellicosm/books/bks_1560257482.htm)

http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-1/581/...3_Science.shtml (http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-1/581/581_13_Science.shtml)

Much of what the 'intelligentsia' have contributed amounts to little more than 2400 years of philosophical confusion.

[JazzRemington]

*cough*Necromancy*cough*

[Marsella]

*cough*Necromancy*cough*

:D Yeah, did you notice Rosa that this thread is over 2 years old? Hell, even RedStar 2000's got his little comment above :lol:

[KurtFF8]

This seems to be the old argument "well you can't know what it's like to be a worker, thus you can't be a socialist/Marxist"

Hell even Marx was a petite-bourgeoisie and not really a part of the working class. But just because you can't quite relate with the working-class doesn't mean that you can't understand the capitalist system and their role in it, and thus come to the conclusion that socialism is a better alternative.

I don't understand the argument that one needs to be a worker to fight for workers rights. That would be similar to saying that in the 60s, you could only fight for desegregation if you were black. Clearly that's false.


or the intelligentsia a commitment to socialism is a moral commitment, not one born out of necessity. Socialism is what they see themselves as handing down to the masses, who are unable to themselves establish a socialist society. In the eyes of the intelligentsia they are to serve as benevolent despots to the irrational masses, in effect they see themselves as playing the role of Plato’s philosopher kings in any regime that they seek to establish. Thus the sort of socialism that the intellectuals are interested in is not the same sort of socialism that non-intellectuals argue for.

Socialism is more than just a "moral" right, but an entire economic system that many see as preferable to capitalism in more ways than it's "human face" aspect.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Martov:


Yeah, did you notice Rosa that this thread is over 2 years old? Hell, even RedStar 2000's got his little comment above

The point is valid whether it is two or two hundred years old.

What's your problem?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

KurtFFB:


I don't understand the argument that one needs to be a worker to fight for workers rights. That would be similar to saying that in the 60s, you could only fight for desegregation if you were black. Clearly that's false.

No one is saying this -- well certainly not me.

But, the analogy with blacks is inapt, for we are talking about class issues, not those of race.

And, unless workers do fight for themselves, there will be no socialist society.

If others want to help, fine.

[Marsella]

The point is valid whether it is two or two hundred years old.

What's your problem?

Sorry Rosa I wasn't aiming to be rude, I just found it funny that you were correcting someone who had posted a long time ago and evidently doesn't visit the forum anymore.

But you're quite right, your point is valid regardless.


The intellectuals are the ones that develop all the theories and technology that ends up creating the means of production. They are its source.

Simply incorrect. I quote in response (K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977):


The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.

Hyacinth has seen it backwards; thinking that the 'superstructure' or the 'morals and ideals' of society paved the way for the mode of production.

This isn't surprising. Hyacinth's thinking is typical of capitalist mentality; individuals alone are responsible for their actions, individuals' ideas MUST have been responsible for the progress of society. No doubt the Bourgeoisie thinkers thought so.


Without intellectuals you would not have capitalism, we’d still be stuck in feudalism.

Feudalism spring out of the ground did it? How did we progress to feudality?


To reduce the intelligentsia to either the proletariat or the bourgeoisies oversimplifies things. In a sense they do belong to either the proletariat or the bourgeoisies in that they may be waged laborers (being paid for the intellectual labor), or they may be owners of means of productions themselves.

Teachers and academics are not proletariat, not creating any surplus value. And being proletariat OR bourgeoisie does not excuse you from being an intellectual. They are not mutually exclusive terms.


But the fact remains that the intellectuals do not have the same class consciousness as either the proletariat or the bourgeoisies. They see neither the proletariat or the bourgeoisies as capable of governing, and the interests of the proletariat or the bourgeoisies are not the interests of the intellectuals.

Even intellectuals cannot break away from the vacuum of society and form a cocoon in which they can voice their opinions 'objectively'! As we know, the earliest form of man, homo erectus, was a tool maker, and as such it follows that speech and tool-making are as old as he is. That gives an estimate of around a million years, give or take a quarter of a million.

Are you telling me that in over a million years of progress no intellectual has learnt the 'perfect' form of society. Heck, it took us over 990,000 years to form the most basic of human society!

Undoubtedly, you will respond 'they did not have the conditions to do so.' The fact is that the intellectual ONLY formed their ideas based on the conditions in which they were in. It's the fundamental reason why we don't have people who support slavery in a capitalist society, nor will we have those who support wage labour in communism. Economic change = consciousness change.

If it was the case that history merely consists of individuals logically 'learning' how to 'better' society history would have ended long ago. This idea is no better lampooned by Engels (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume 3, p. 95-151)


What was wanted was the individual man of genius, who has now arisen and who understands the truth. That he has now arisen, that the truth has now been clearly understood, is not an inevitable event, following of necessity in the chains of historical development, but a mere happy accident. He might just as well have been born 500 years earlier, and might then have spared humanity 500 years of error, strife, and suffering.

We saw how the French philosophers of the 18th century, the forerunners of the Revolution, appealed to reason as the sole judge of all that is. A rational government, rational society, were to be founded; everything that ran counter to eternal reason was to be remorselessly done away with. We saw also that this eternal reason was in reality nothing but the idealized understanding of the 18th century citizen, just then evolving into the bourgeois. The French Revolution had realized this rational society and government.



Ultimately I do not see the intellectuals siding with the proletariat for any other purpose than to take power themselves, for the supposed good of everyone. Because in their eyes the proletariat are unfit to govern themselves, just as the bourgeoisies are unfit to govern.

As stated, intellectuals do not escape classes no matter how highly they think of themselves. They have taken sides before and undoubtedly they will take sides again.

However, the question remains, what have the 'intellectuals' done?
a) They have acted in the reactionary form and provided a justification for the present society.
b) They have acted in the revolutionary form and provided a justification for the future society.

And they always will perform BOTH roles, until what we call Communism is achieved. Class struggle dictates change.

And Rosa, although unrelated, your below links reminded me of this:
http://historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

(Edit: Please correct me if I have overlooked, simplified or got something wrong :P)

[KurtFF8]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 11, 2007 06:39 am
KurtFFB:


I don't understand the argument that one needs to be a worker to fight for workers rights. That would be similar to saying that in the 60s, you could only fight for desegregation if you were black. Clearly that's false.

No one is saying this -- well certainly not me.

But, the analogy with blacks is inapt, for we are talking about class issues, not those of race.

And, unless workers do fight for themselves, there will be no socialist society.

If others want to help, fine.
Well obviously my analogy is talking about something else, that is the nature of it being an analogy.

[Sky]

As noted by Lenin, students are the most responsive part of the intelligentsia, and consequently the student movement reflects with particular clarity the changing status, composition, and ideology of the intelligentsia. No longer does the majority of the intelligentsia constitute a privileged stratum. A growing number of students in the capitalist countries are faced with the prospect of joining the ranks of the proletariat or even the army of the unemployed, and they are therefore becoming increasingly hostile toward the capitalist system. Students are sharply critical of the bourgeois educational system and its outdated structure, the social discrimination with respect to admission ti higher educational institutions, the subordination of education to the interests of the monopolies and the military-industrial complex, the high cost of education and the limited number of stipends, which force many students either to abandon their schooling or to work in order to complete their education, and the increasing difficulties in finding employment.

Students all over the world are working in support of the people’s struggle for peace, international security, peaceful coexistence, and cooperation among nations. In 1969 hundreds of thousands of students from various countries joined in mass demonstrations, marches, solidarity meetings, and fund raising efforts as part of a campaign of world solidarity with the struggle of the Vietnamese people for freedom, independence, and peace, as well as in the worldwide 1970-73 campaign for youth solidarity against imperialism. Student demonstrations took place between 1968-71 at the universities of many of the advanced capitalist countries, including the U.S., France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Student demands have covered a wide range of pressing political problems. In German cities, students and youth demandd the abolition of emergency regulations and demonstrated against neo-Nazism and Springer’s yellow press. In the U.S., hundreds of thousands of students marched in protest against American aggression in Indochina and in defense of of the civil rights of the black population and of other ethnic minorities. In Tokyo and in other Japanese cities student smontrators demanded the repeal of the Japanese-American “security treaty”, improvements in education, and better living conditions for students. In France, the student demonstrations of May 1968 were an important factor in the workers’ growing struggle against the monopolies and the Gaullist regime—as struggle that culminated in the general strike involving some 10 million people.

At the same time a large segment of the student population is politically immature, socially heterogeneous, and poorly organized, and it lacks the habit of day-to-day sustained revolutionary activity, while exhibiting romanticism and impatience characteristic of youth; these conditions facilitate the penetration of the student ranks by subversive elements—for example, by anarchists and Trotskyists. Some of the students have been considerably influenced by such petit bourgeois and bourgeois ideologists as Herbert Marcuse, Paul Goodman, and Abbie Hoffman who attempt to counterpose the student movement to the struggle of the working class. Declaring that the working class is losing its revolutionary character, they flatter youth, calling it the decisive revolutionary force and the vanguard of the toiling masses. Communists must oppose elements that are hostile to the genuine interests of students—elements that encourage students to take irresponsible actions which have tragic consequences.

[Springmeester]

I have a lot of experience with differences between workers and students. I myself am a worker, I'm a carpenter and work 40 hours a week. There is a big difference between students and workers. This, however, is unavoidable. The live of a student does not demand the same discipline as the live of a worker. In my opinion this is the biggest difference between students and workers. Students decide to become communists because they want to fight social inequality or because being revolutionary sounds exciting and adventurous. Workers however are forced to develop a revolutionary 'state of mind' because their position in society, their position in the class struggle, constantly confronts them with the power structures which are present in capitalism. Most of my comrades are students and one of the biggest problems they have is that they are not practical. They focus enormously on theoretical study, but do not join any revolutionary action, know nothing of organization, moan and complain about each other and are unwilling to make personal sacrifices. This lack of engagement is a common problem with students and intellectuals and it derives from the simple fact that they have more freedom. A student at the university has the possibility of a good job, with good wages, he can probably even pay his mortgages in adult life. They have the luxury of ignoring the class struggle if they want, while the worker can't. He can't ignore the class struggle because he needs to survive. In my opinion all communist intellectuals should go and work in the factory's, construction sites, offices for low-wage jobs. The party can support them with their work in the masses, they can learn to organize and lead in the class struggle. If they don't do this, if they go and work for the big multinationals, corporations and firms they will lose their social engagement, they will lose perspective on class struggle and eventually lose their ideals.

[Invader Zim]

I've worked a 40 hour week as a manual labourer, and that is why I am a student and why I continue to be a student long after my graduation. Back breaking labour for minimum wage is something I would advice every individual on this board to attempt to avoid if at all possible.

However the idea that students don't work is an incorrect one. A great many students work, indeed part-time study has become increasingly popular so that students can work and can study.

[Guerrilla22]

I'm a student because the days when you could get a job outside of the service industry in the US without a degree are gone. Out of high school I worked in a factory that made car parts, the entire factory was closed and operations moved to Mexico. Everybody lost their job, including people who were supporting families. I decided I better get a college education while I still young.

[FireFry]

As for students, if they don't have to work to survive.. why should they?? There's a problem with that specific capitalist paradigm that claims that everybody should have a job -- or else they are lazy good-for-nothings : including children.

This is just another economic cog that is used to keep the ruling class on it's feet.

[Angry Young Man]

The only problem is that not many workers' children can go to uni. But if you see things like this: Karl Marx was at uni when everyone was by necessity wealthy. In fact, they'dve been mostly bucktoothed inbreds.

[Ferryman 5]

This is an old chestnut that has been agonised over by generations of (particularly young) revolutionaries. By all means let’s keep debating it, but whatever the circumstances of the revolutionaries; the key test is their commitment to the development of revolutionary theory in the working class. That is a hard enough struggle as it is, given the levels of capitalist brain-washing reactionary propaganda, without divisive disputes about petty gradations in the proletariat.
It’s not the student ‘preaching’ as such that is the problem, would that more of them would preach. It is the student and worker ‘preaching’ crap that is the problem. Let’s concentrate on what is being ‘preached’ and make sure it reflects actual development as accurately as possible. Who says it and how they say it is of secondary importance now.

[Oneironaut]

I do feel that there exists a rift between workers and students that has developed from the tendency for students to feel they are superior when it comes to social change because they have taken rigid courses on the subject and spent many hours solely studying politics, social structures, and economics and there manifestation in the real world. Radical workers tend to have the opinion that the only way you can learn about these manifestations in through living them which they are forced to endure day in and day out. I feel like both have legit points of view although I personally side with the workers' pov. But to say that the university is comfortable living is becoming more and more less the case. I am university educated, and now back in to the working class and I can say with confidence that being at the university was one of the most financially pressing times of my life. Now this is my own experience. I did not have economic support beyond my own means while I was at the university. My dorm room was the least comfortable place I have ever lived. Students are beginning to realize that they are being oppressed through insane student loans and tuition costs. Many of my university friends have realized that they will remain in debt for decades after the university and many have not received jobs that will adequately cover their debt. I feel like this can be an advantage to the socialist movement as students' costs continue to increase exponentially. We can only hope that they don't fall for the false promises of liberals and think that they have any solution whatsoever.

[Ferryman 5]

Virgin MC

Looks about right to me. Intellectuals are definitely not a separate class.

There is some immature attitudes to this but there is also some mischievous divisive shit-stirring going on that workers should be very suspicious about. What possible advantage is there in isolating excluding or demonising students and 'interlectuals'.

[STI]

Teachers and academics are not proletariat, not creating any surplus value

Academics produce commodities (education, research) which generate wealth for universities (from tuition and patents, respectively). The wealth generated is less than is paid to the academics and used to pay for grants, facilities, etc. Surplus value is expropriated by the university and distributed among shareholders.

Academics are exploited workers, QED.

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the eyes of the intelligentsia they are to serve as benevolent despots to the irrational masses, in effect they see themselves as playing the role of Plato’s philosopher kings in any regime that they seek to establish. Thus the sort of socialism that the intellectuals are interested in is not the same sort of socialism that non-intellectuals argue for.

I noted Hyacinth's very old response above, and I'd like to say this about modern "intellectuals":

http://www.revleft.com/vb/simplification-class-relations-t73419/index.html



One more thing to note is that there are still some Marxists who equate the word “proletarian” with those who work strictly to produce physical commodities, separating them from the rest of the working class. There are distinctions within the working class, and they are sectoral, but historically the classical Marxists used the two words interchangeably. The sectoral distinctions have arisen as a result of the development of capitalism as a whole. First came the manual workers – forestry and mining workers, factory workers, and proper farm workers (as opposed to peasants), among others – most of whom are indeed involved in the production of physical commodities. Then came the clerical workers – office workers, typical retail workers (except those doing heavy-lifting in the warehouses), bank tellers, bartenders, and others – who are involved in the provision of services.

A trend in the development of the capitalism has been professionalization, even that of intellectual work, as noted by Frank Furedi in his work Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting Twenty-First Century Philistinism. With this trend comes professional workers, including teachers, professors, engineers, nurses, and most accountants (who neither have ownership stakes in accounting firms nor exercise “factual control” through management). Indeed, this trend was already observed by Karl Kautsky in Chapter 2 of The Class Struggle:

There is still a third category of proletarians that has gone far on the road to its complete development – the educated proletarians. Education has become a special trade under our present system. The measure of knowledge has increased greatly and grows daily. Capitalist society and the capitalist state are increasingly in need of men of knowledge and ability to conduct their business, in order to bring the forces of nature under their power […] Under this system education becomes a merchandise.

A hundred years or so ago this commodity was rare. There were few schools; study was accompanied with considerable expense. So long as small production could support him, the worker stuck to it; only special gifts of nature or favorable circumstances would cause the sons of the workers to dedicate themselves to the arts and sciences. Though there was an increasing demand for teachers, artists and other professional men, the supply was definitely limited.

Since those days the development of higher education has made immense progress. The number of institutions of learning has increased wonderfully, and in a still larger degree, the number of pupils.

[…]

The time is near when the bulk of these proletarians will be distinguished from the others only by their pretensions. Most of them still imagine that they are something better than proletarians. They fancy they belong to the bourgeoisie, just as the lackey identifies himself with the class of his master. They have ceased to be the leaders of the capitalist class and have become rather their defenders. Place-hunting takes more and more of their energies. Their first care is, not the development of their intellect, but the sale of it. The prostitution of their individuality has become their chief means of advancement.

That time has long since passed; professionalization has further enabled education to become a merchandise.

...

Given what has been discussed above, there may be further developments in class relations that could lead to further class division. In spite of sectoral issues and sectoral chauvinism in favour of manual workers, the fact that the proletariat has not been divided on account of the scale of the means of production relative to society at large is a good sign for the cause of working-class unity.



There are intellectuals who still fancy themselves as would-be "philosopher-kings," but they retain a false, petit-bourgeois consciousness and have not humbly accepted a proletarian consciousness. [Believe me, I was in this false position in the past, even though I'm a clerical worker in the processing of becoming a professional worker.]

[chimx]

Now that I am working 40-50 hrs weekly, in a factory, I feel more comitted to Socialism., and often wonder if students can really relate to a working person. I often feel resentment towards students who "preach" their idealism from their comfortable dorm rooms and lecture halls, while I work my life away just to pay rent and feed myself. Simply put, I question thier committment to a cause they are so distant from.

I strongly agree with this. If you don't have material reasons for advancing production relations, than you are being driven by idealism, and that is something that should be opposed.

[Hyacinth]

I noted Hyacinth's very old response above, and I'd like to say this about modern "intellectuals".
For the record, that was the me of three years ago speaking, my views have changed radically since then.

There are intellectuals who still fancy themselves as would-be "philosopher-kings," but they retain a false, petit-bourgeois consciousness and have not humbly accepted a proletarian consciousness. [Believe me, I was in this false position in the past, even though I'm a clerical worker in the processing of becoming a professional worker.]
Absolutely correct; and I speak here from first-hand experience. Incidentally it was the reading of Plato’s Republic that first attracted my old self to this idea; to one pursuing an academic career the prospect of being a philosopher-king is quite appealing (but, of course, I would have never admitted this in the past, neither to myself nor others; I would always justify it as “for the good of the people”). It was a covert authoritarianism.

That time has long since passed; professionalization has further enabled education to become a merchandise.
Very true, as I’m finding from personal experience. Delusions of superiority, of whatever sort, are, for example, easier to maintain while still a student then when one is faced with actually going on the academic job market; soon all theoretical delusions of superiority are quickly shattered by the harsh realities of a market.