Kasama Project: Walk the Revolutionary Road With Us

[Rawthentic]

Kasama Project: Walk the Revolutionary Road With Us (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2008/08/08/kasama-project-come-walk-the-revolutionary-road-with-us/)

Posted by Mike E (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1129785784) on August 8, 2008
http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/kasamaproject.gif?w=300&h=231 (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/kasama_flyer_v5.pdf)

In April, we initiated the Kasama Project at our first national conference. We are now organized in beginning collectives in several cities, with a network of contacts in a dozen places nationally.
The following was written quickly for this summer’s SDS convention, and refined since then. We expect it to evolve as we work on our common language and raise our level of unity — and as we hear your comments and questions.
We urge you to circulate this statement in creative ways. And we invite you to join us: Many deeds cry out to be done.

[print-ready PDF version (http://mikeely.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/kasama_flyer_v5.pdf)]
* * * * *

In a world at war, the times cry out for a new direction. The existing left has been unable to speak to our times, let alone provide real-world solutions. Activists, organizers and dreamers have too often relied on old formulas from bygone days – and far too many have simply given up on radical change. A serious, creative break needs to be made to escape this impasse.

Kasama is a communist project for the forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions. We are open to learning, unafraid to admit our own uncertainties. At the same time, we will not shrink from what we do know: the solutions cannot be found within the current world order or the choices it provides. We are for revolution. We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.
To take this road, we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement. We need fresh analyses of the rapid changes shaping the world around us. We need to sum up a century of revolutionary strategies and attempts, victories and defeats – instead of the conventional wisdom and facile verdicts that paralyze our movements. We need to re-imagine a radical politics that can take life among people and move mountains. We need a movement that can listen, as well as speak.

REVOLUTION: rethinking the unthinkable

We intend to identify those fault lines where radical thought and action can emerge. We want to go deeply among the people to prepare minds and organize forces for revolution; for a global transformation of human life; for the urgent rescue of the biosphere from capitalist destruction; for the radical dismantling of the U. S. empire – its military, its nuclear weapons and torture camps; for the uprooting of intolerable racial inequalities and the archaic brutalities of male supremacy; for the final liberation of humanity from the restless, soulless rule of capitalist profit making!
Help launch our new organizing and theoretical projects. Let’s reconceive as we regroup for coming storms. The end of this world is the beginning of the new. Everything will change. How it changes is up to us.

Come walk the revolutionary road with us.


* * * * *
Kasama: (http://mikeely.wordpress.com/)Analysis and Discussion
Internationalist information project (http://southasiarev.wordpress.com/)
Kasama Threads: (http://z11.invisionfree.com/Kasama_Threads/)Discussion forums
email: kasamasite (at) yahoo.com

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Oh good lord. You have contacts in SDS? Hunter college people I assume? SDS is gonna boil over at some point if ideological groups keep sticking their hands in it. Everyone needs to leave it alone.

[Rawthentic]

I'm sorry, but there are several diff tendencies within the SDS.

It's kinda funny to say its gonna boil over if "ideological groups keep sticking their hands in it" because not being ideological is itself an ideology. "Libertarianism" or whatever bullshit you want is an ideology too.

[?Stalins ghost?]

Is this in new zealand to?

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

I'm sorry, but there are several diff tendencies within the SDS.

It's kinda funny to say its gonna boil over if "ideological groups keep sticking their hands in it" because not being ideological is itself an ideology. "Libertarianism" or whatever bullshit you want is an ideology too.

I mean specific political groups, like the two FRSO's, Kasama etc. It will turn SDS to crap, though that's largely happened already at this point.

By and large SDS is composed of liberals, anarchists and as some Marixst leninists. No ideological group from any faction should put their hands in it, since it'll speed up centrifugal forces within SDS.

[Rawthentic]

The point of Kasama is not to make the SDS a part of us.

What we want (and need) is to engage all of these radical forces and support the creation of a revolutionary student movement. Thats the point.

and forgive my tone and rudeness in my last post, i was having a bad day.

[Ismail]

I'm pretty sure it's best to focus on achieving a revolutionary proletarian movement first, then the student movement comes after. Otherwise this project is doomed to fail just like attempts made in the 60's and 70's. Remember, the proletariat is the guiding force of this epoch, not students.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

The point of Kasama is not to make the SDS a part of us.

What we want (and need) is to engage all of these radical forces and support the creation of a revolutionary student movement. Thats the point.

and forgive my tone and rudeness in my last post, i was having a bad day.


A revolutionary student movement ain't coming from SDS. It doesn't have a program for mass organizing, they don't appeal to regular students. They appeal to politically left students. They want to build a better student left, that's it really it. They have a few chapters that adopt a student syndicalist perspective, but these are few and far between. Macalester and Brown come to mind. There is 1 national campaign about student debt and about 7 others on issues that do not directly affect the lives of students.

SDS is something like Revleft. Ecumenical, multi issue, young, but based on ideological recruitment rather than recruitment through struggle. Struggle is the only way to recruit large numbers, and the only way to build mass movements. SDS with more "revolutionary" rhetoric will just go the way of the old one...isolated and unimportant. Which has happened already in a lot of areas, mine included.

[Saorsa]

I'm pretty sure it's best to focus on achieving a revolutionary proletarian movement first, then the student movement comes after. Otherwise this project is doomed to fail just like attempts made in the 60's and 70's. Remember, the proletariat is the guiding force of this epoch, not students.

What's wrong with struggling to build a revolutionary movement amongst both students and workers? I see no reason why you have to choose one or the other. If you don't orientate first and foremost towards workers, you run the risk of becoming a liberal organisation with no links to working class reality. But if you ignore the university's entirely, you're shooting yourself in the foot. University's are a fruitful recruiting ground for revolutionaries, and while most students in the present conditions are largely apathetic and apolitical, it's crazy to pretend that they all are.

Our work among students must not be based upon "studentist" politics, e.g. raising the demand for free education but not linking it into the fact that education is funded out of the surplus-value created by the working class, thus indebting students to the workers. We must push any students we recruit towards the working class, encouraging them to stand on picket lines or whatever else they can practically do to support workers struggles, while also training them up ideoligically to recognise the proletariat as the main revolutionary force in society.

We have to take a two pronged approach, working both on the campuses and in the unions and working-class communities, if we want to move forward as revolutionary organisations.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Our work among students must not be based upon "studentist" politics, e.g. raising the demand for free education but not linking it into the fact that education is funded out of the surplus-value created by the working class, thus indebting students to the workers. We must push any students we recruit towards the working class, encouraging them to stand on picket lines or whatever else they can practically do to support workers struggles, while also training them up ideoligically to recognise the proletariat as the main revolutionary force in society.

We have to take a two pronged approach, working both on the campuses and in the unions and working-class communities, if we want to move forward as revolutionary organisations.

Studentist? How are students indebted to the working class? Most students are working class and that majority will only increase. Moreover in America, the country with one of the largest student populations, students only receive free secondary education. University is self financed.

Student syndicalism is about building a capacity for self activity, and building confidence in mass movement, working class, politics. To show the youngins that material problems in their everyday lives can be solved with direct action and mass organization. When they become full time workers, these people carry over past lessons, and agitate in the workplace and in their communities.

[Saorsa]

How are students indebted to the working class?

Because student fees do not actually cover the majorty of the costs of their education. The greater part of it is still payed for by the state, out of the surplus-value created by the working class. Workers fund student's education. Apart from the basic objective facts, its a good political demand to raise - student struggles in and of themselves cannot challenge capitalism, they have to be linked with those of workers.


Moreover in America, the country with one of the largest student populations, students only receive free secondary education. University is self financed.

Students should nt have to pay a cent for their tertiary education, but even the money they pay now doesn't cover the majority of their university costs. Workers sweat pays for the majority of their education.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Because student fees do not actually cover the majorty of the costs of their education. The greater part of it is still payed for by the state, out of the surplus-value created by the working class. Workers fund student's education. Apart from the basic objective facts, its a good political demand to raise - student struggles in and of themselves cannot challenge capitalism, they have to be linked with those of workers.
Most students ARE working class. Indebting them to the working class is kind of like saying "Dude you should be grateful to your right hand, cause it does all that awesome stuff for you." Students, the ones we can mobilize at least, are working class. These aren't rich kids we need to ideologically convert, they need not feel indebted to the workers as they are workers.





Students should nt have to pay a cent for their tertiary education, but even the money they pay now doesn't cover the majority of their university costs. Workers sweat pays for the majority of their education.

This is wrong. Many universities run on tuition. For example, my university in 95 percent dependent on tuition for all operating costs. Only some rely for a majority of their costs via endowment. And again, this is silly becuase you are separating students out of the working class. Most students work part time, and the vast majority are working class. What you posit is tantamount to identity politics.

[Saorsa]

Things may be different where you live - you're American right? But here in NZ, and in Australia too, the majority of students are NOT working-class, and I'd be very surprised if that were the case in America as well.

Here, most workers either go to polytech or don't go to uni at all. I suspect you're using a somewhat loose definition of "working-class". Working part-time does not make you working class.

It’s vital to point out that it costs far more to have students at university than what they pay in fees. The difference, whether it’s from EFTs, from the university selling research or university investments etc, comes, from some kind of division of surplus-value. Therefore, if students expect to be funded out of the exploitation of the working class, it is important to know what students intend to give back to the working class.

Students demanding free education is not radical *in and of itself*. There’s no contradiction between a bunch of students demanding tertiary education for free – ie free stuff for themselves - so they can get their BComs or MComs or whatever and then get jobs screwing over the working class. Why should workers pay to create the managers and capitalists that screw them over?



What you posit is tantamount to identity politics.

Actually it's the complete opposite. I'm opposing approaches that focus on student's demands in isolation, and instead I seek to link them to the working-class, the class which actually pays for student's education. The fees students pay does not cover the full cost of their education, even in the US.

[Bilan]

Things may be different where you live - you're American right? But here in NZ, and in Australia too, the majority of students are NOT working-class, and I'd be very surprised if that were the case in America as well.

That's not necessarily true.
True, Universities are becoming more and more (And especially since univeristies are now charging exorbitant prices for uni education) schools for the rich, and certainly do train the next generation of bosses and managers of the proletariat.
That, however, is fundamentally due to the restructering of the university - and namely, through the forcing of tuition fees.

That doesn't, however, fundamentally remove students from the working class, because their have been cushions put in to give working class people access to the univeristies - in Australia, its HEX.

The problem with that is that it leaves most students in a mass amount of debt.

Further, students have to work to be able to live while they're studying, and in the cases of universities, it means for most, they can only work part time, as they have to juggle their studies and the basics (food, clothing, etc).

Friends of mine who are currently studying, some of them are living in, as they put it, squalor. Just one of them - who works and studies - had 5 bucks to last a week, because of uni + rent + etc, and barely had enough for food.

The fact of the matter is, although the nature of the university is essentially to train the new bourgeoisie, the bureaucrats of tomorrow, it's class composition is determined by other factors than just that.

As for high school students, you can't possibly be arguing that they're not working class!



It’s vital to point out that it costs far more to have students at university than what they pay in fees. The difference, whether it’s from EFTs, from the university selling research or university investments etc, comes, from some kind of division of surplus-value. Therefore, if students expect to be funded out of the exploitation of the working class, it is important to know what students intend to give back to the working class.


Are you suggesting that tertiary education should be a privilege?



Students demanding free education is not radical *in and of itself*.

In alot of respects it is.
Free education is a stepping stone to radical changes in the university.
It first of all means that the current nature of the university, and its continually growing bourgeois domination (as in, of the students; the nature of the education is of course, already dominated by that), and that higher education becomes totally accessible to the working class.

But it's not revolutionary. It's reformist.



There’s no contradiction between a bunch of students demanding tertiary education for free – ie free stuff for themselves - so they can get their BComs or MComs or whatever and then get jobs screwing over the working class. Why should workers pay to create the managers and capitalists that screw them over?

They wont just be the capitalists and managers of tomorrow, That's not all universities do.
What's being argued for is free education. You can't honestly be legitimizing the privatisation of education!




Actually it's the complete opposite. I'm opposing approaches that focus on student's demands in isolation, and instead I seek to link them to the working-class, the class which actually pays for student's education. The fees students pay does not cover the full cost of their education, even in the US.

Student demands in isolation, I agree, is something that should be opposed. Completely undermining student demands, however, is equally stupid, and your approach is likely to fall completely flat on its face.
The combined approach is necessary. To address completely student issues - relating to tuition fees, bureaucratic structures within universities, the very nature of the education itself, etc - and to build ties with the working class - so, involving students in working class organizations outside the university, awell as inside.

You telling every university student that they're bourgeois, however, is a bit silly.

Many people on this board can vouch for that, my friend.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

Things may be different where you live - you're American right? But here in NZ, and in Australia too, the majority of students are NOT working-class, and I'd be very surprised if that were the case in America as well.

The vast majority of American university students are working class. Capital has raised the qualifications for the labor market. More and more people are going to college and fewer and fewer are coming out with any material benefit. They are coming out with massive loans though, which serve to discipline young workers when they otherwise wouldn’t have much to lose.



Here, most workers either go to polytech or don't go to uni at all. I suspect you're using a somewhat loose definition of "working-class". Working part-time does not make you working class.
And what do all of those uni types end up doing? Do they all become managers, business owners, and high powered professionals? Sounds awfully suspect to me. The information economy demands college educated workers and that’s what’s graduating out.

Part time work is an indication that a student is working class. Otherwise they wouldn’t be working; they’d be doing an internship or drinking. Most students have part time jobs because they cannot work full time. They are full time students already, an 80 hour week is bit much for them. Though, I’m ever so curious to hear your definition of working class. Does it involve blue overalls and a hammer?


It’s vital to point out that it costs far more to have students at university than what they pay in fees. The difference, whether it’s from EFTs, from the university selling research or university investments etc, comes, from some kind of division of surplus-value. Therefore, if students expect to be funded out of the exploitation of the working class, it is important to know what students intend to give back to the working class.

Students are workers and are from the working class. If they are not from the working class, I see no point trying to recruit them en masse into some sort of revolutionary movement. That would be rather pointless and somewhat masochistic. You might as well tell the capitalists that they are living off surplus value.


Students demanding free education is not radical *in and of itself*. There’s no contradiction between a bunch of students demanding tertiary education for free – ie free stuff for themselves - so they can get their BComs or MComs or whatever and then get jobs screwing over the working class. Why should workers pay to create the managers and capitalists that screw them over?Workers shouldn’t, but most students are working class. Student politics does not begin at university, but starts in early secondary school. That’s where the real focus should lie. University is a bit late in the game if you ask me. And there’s no debate there about working class authenticity. Anyway, students are working class and will only become more so with the passing years. Capital demands more qualifications and trainings, and that will continue. Guilting them into some false petit bourgeois consciousness, because you’ve ignored changes in the workforce, is a really bad idea.

[Saorsa]

As for high school students, you can't possibly be arguing that they're not working class!

No, I was referring more specifically to uni students.



Students are workers and are from the working class. If they are not from the working class, I see no point trying to recruit them en masse into some sort of revolutionary movement. That would be rather pointless and somewhat masochistic. You might as well tell the capitalists that they are living off surplus value.

What a ridiculous thing to say. We shouldn't try and recruit people to the revolutionary movement just because they're not working class? Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Lenin, all of those men were not working class. We should orientate our organisatins towards the working class, and make them our primary focus, but we shouldn't ignore other sectors of the population, such as students.


Are you suggesting that tertiary education should be a privilege?

No. I'm saying that students should recognise that the majority of their education costs are covered by surplus-value created by the working class, not through their own funds, and thus they owe a debt to the working class, and should have to repay it in some way (e.g. working in some kind of community organisation).


Free education is a stepping stone to radical changes in the university.
It first of all means that the current nature of the university, and its continually growing bourgeois domination (as in, of the students; the nature of the education is of course, already dominated by that), and that higher education becomes totally accessible to the working class.

Students currently demanding free education are just raising a self-serving demand, unless they link it with the working class that would actually have to pay for their free education!


What's being argued for is free education. You can't honestly be legitimizing the privatisation of education!

I'm not. I'm saying that when students raise the demand for free education in and of itself, we should ensure that it's linked to an understanding of how this education will be paid for, e.g. by the working class. I'm not legitimising the privatisation of education at all - I'm opposing workers having to pay for it and not being guaranateed a return, or even the recognition of the fact that they paid for it!


Student demands in isolation, I agree, is something that should be opposed. Completely undermining student demands, however, is equally stupid, and your approach is likely to fall completely flat on its face.

I AM NOT UNDERMINING STUDENT DEMANDS. When a bunch of middle-class liberals with Green Party badges on campus call for Free Education, they should not be allowed to frame the call in the terms they want to. Even socialist groups fall prey to this!

In NZ in the late 90s, there was a campaign organised by Socialist Worker called "Fight Back". It was organised against rising fees, and the restructuring of the universities to the detriment of students, particularly ones with a working class background. SW was a Marxist group, but the slogans you heard at it's protests went along the lines of "Whaddawe want?" "Free Education!" "How we gonna pay for it?" "progressive taxation!". They put up posters saying "tax the rich for free education".

They were not framing the issue in revolutionary socialist terms, because they didn't want to challenge the petit-bourgeois consciousness of students. Thus, when Labour was elected in 99 the campaign dwindled away into nothing, EVEN THOUGH nothing really changed - Labour just took interest off the loans!

Unless we challenge the student consciousness, and frame the issue in terms of "where's this free education going to come from " (without saying shit like "progressive taxation"), we might as well not bother - the Greens and Young Labour will do just as good a job.


The combined approach is necessary. To address completely student issues - relating to tuition fees, bureaucratic structures within universities, the very nature of the education itself, etc - and to build ties with the working class - so, involving students in working class organizations outside the university, awell as inside.

I agree totally - but most groups on campus don't do that.


You telling every university student that they're bourgeois, however, is a bit silly.

I never said that. But the class you were born into determines you're class background, not the class you actually are a part of at any given time. Students, even if they are born into the working class, are not workers simply because of that. If you're not creating surplus-value through selling you're labour power to a capitalist, and if this is not you're primary and defining social function, then you are not a worker - you may come from a working class background, and have a lot of attitudes that reflect that, but you're not a worker. Most students are not workers, and students as a whole tend to be petit-bourgeois in character and attitude. We have to challenge that, and try and align them with the working class (with some students that's easier than others, of course), rather than just tailending the existing consciousness by raising the demand for free education without any mention of the role the proletariat must play in giving students this.


Part time work is an indication that a student is working class. Otherwise they wouldn’t be working; they’d be doing an internship or drinking.

No it isn't. I work part time, but I'm a high school student from a middle class family. I don't use the fact that I work part-time to claim that I'm part of the working class. Working part time does not make you a proletarian, it just makes you a student who works part time!


Most students have part time jobs because they cannot work full time. They are full time students already, an 80 hour week is bit much for them.

Exactly. They're full time students. They're not working class. I'm not condemning for this, I'm just saying that students are objectively not proletarian in character.


Guilting them into some false petit bourgeois consciousness, because you’ve ignored changes in the workforce, is a really bad idea.

We don't go in there and say "you're a bunch of middle class liberals, and you'll never change!". That's ridiculius. I'm saying we need to the opposite - we need to challenge the existing consciousness and create feelings of solidarity with the working class. Calling for free education through progressive taxation won't do this - pointing out that student's owe a debt to the working class (even if they were born into it!) will.

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

What a ridiculous thing to say. We shouldn't try and recruit people to the revolutionary movement just because they're not working class? Marx, Engels, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Lenin, all of those men were not working class. We should orientate our organisatins towards the working class, and make them our primary focus, but we shouldn't ignore other sectors of the population, such as students. You need to read my text with a bit more attention. I see no point in recruiting en masse from populations outside the working class. You can be a half way decent revolutionary and not be working class. However, they make up a very small minority in a mass revolutionary movement. All mass recruiting, all work dedicated towards struggle, has to be about working class issues, that 70-80 percent of the population, which can be the agent of change.


No it isn't. I work part time, but I'm a high school student from a middle class family. I don't use the fact that I work part-time to claim that I'm part of the working class. Working part time does not make you a proletarian, it just makes you a student who works part time! What the hell is middle class? Is it something you enter when you’ve attained a proper guilt quotient? Do you or your family make a majority of your earnings from surplus value? Do you or your family work in a position which can hire and fire workers? If not, you are working class. Middle class is a bunch of shit made up by capitalists to make half of working people dislike the other half.

As I said before, full time students, working part time jobs, represent a strong indication of working class status. Why? Well unless Momy and Daddy are subsidizing most of their expenses, and Mommy and Daddy aren’t working class, then that student is a worker.

But again I am intrigued to hear you definition of “working class” does it involve blue overalls and a hammer? Perhaps a hardhat to round out the outfit?


We don't go in there and say "you're a bunch of middle class liberals, and you'll never change!". That's ridiculius. I'm saying we need to the opposite - we need to challenge the existing consciousness and create feelings of solidarity with the working class. Calling for free education through progressive taxation won't do this - pointing out that student's owe a debt to the working class (even if they were born into it!) will. What you propose is a recipe for disaster.

If you came in with that line, most students would look at you, muster up a good loogie, and spit in your face. Working class students do not want to hear about how they owe a debt to their own fucking class. It’s absurd, especially when you owe 15-100 thousand dollars in debt for your own university education. Do you honestly think anyone in their right mind would feel gratitude after that? “You are indebted to the workers John, that’s why after working that job you hate to pay off all those loans, you need to do some community work!” By god, they’d pick up a pipe and deck ya one. Or maybe you’d like to guilt scholarship kids like me, people who worked their asses off to net affordable uni, and have to keep their GPA’s up for fear of losing it. Yeah we’re real parasites on the working class.

[Saorsa]

What the hell is middle class? Is it something you enter when you’ve attained a proper guilt quotient? Do you or your family make a majority of your earnings from surplus value? Do you or your family work in a position which can hire and fire workers? If not, you are working class. Middle class is a bunch of shit made up by capitalists to make half of working people dislike the other half.

My dad's a doctor and a university lecturer, and my mom doesn't work in paid employment. In other words, I'm from a petit-bourgeois background. The professional middle class, as it were. The fact that I'm in part-time paid employment is irrelevant to my class status.


But again I am intrigued to hear you definition of “working class” does it involve blue overalls and a hammer? Perhaps a hardhat to round out the outfit?

Ideally. But I tend to use a definition roughly along these lines instead - "The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labour power (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour-power) and does not draw profit (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#surplus-value) from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death,whose sole existence depends on the demand for labour...

The following features of Marx’s definition of the proletariat should be noted: (1) proletariat is synonymous with “modern working class”, (2) proletarians have no means of support other than selling their labour power, (3) their position makes them dependent upon capital, (4) it is the expansion of capital, as opposed to servicing the personal or administrative needs of capitalists, which is the defining role of the proletariat, (4) proletarians sell themselves as opposed to selling products like the petty-bourgeoisie (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/e.htm#petty-bourgeois) and capitalists, (5) they sell themselves “piecemeal” as opposed to slaves who may be sold as a whole and become the property of someone else, (6) although the term “labourers” carries the connotation of manual labour, elsewhere Marx makes it clear that the labourer with the head is as much a proletarian as the labourer with the hand, and finally (7) the proletariat is a class (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm#class).
The proletariat is not a sociological category of people in such-and-such income group and such-and-such occupations, etc., but rather a real, historically developed entity, with its own self-consciousness (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/e.htm#self-consciousness) and means of collective action. The relation between an individual proletarian and the class is not that of non-dialectical sociology, in which an individual (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/n.htm#individual) with this or that attribute is or is not a member of the class. Rather, individuals are connected to a class by a million threads through which they participate in the general social division of labour (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#division-labor) and the struggle over the distribution of surplus value (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#surplus-value).


http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm


What you propose is a recipe for disaster...

I havn't seen any evidence of that yet. No student I've spoken to about this has spat in my face yet, and the polytech students were actually a lot more positive about it than their uni counterparts, agreeing totally and saying that uni students are generally a bunch of "elitist pricks", as one guy put it.

I don't know how many more times I'll have to say it, but this is not about guilt tripping people. I couldn't give two shits whether people feel guilty about their class background - I know I don't. This is about raising slogans that will actually challenge the petit-bourgeois, liberal consciounsess that dominates on campuses and that links the demands of students with the struggles of workers, and shows that the two groups class interests are fundamentally aligned.

Why the fuck would workers feel any resentment at a revolutionary socialist saying that student's are kept in their classes through the labour of that cleaner in the hallway and those roadworkers on the street below? It's an objective fact, and one that the left on campus generally neglects to point out. If you leave uni and go back into the working class, of course you don't need to do anything for them - you are one of them. But if you leave uni and become a lawer or an architect or whatever, you shouldn't be able to swan off into you're flash house and high salary and forget about the people who made it possible. Under socialism, you'll be required to repay the debt you owe the working class, and that's a demand we should raise. Can I make it any more clear?


Yeah we’re real parasites on the working class.

Objectively all students are - you're not covering all the costs related to you're education. It's being paid for out of surplus-value, either private (through scholarships etc) or public, by the state. I'm not saying this to be mean and nasty, I'm simply pointing out the facts.

[Die Neue Zeit]

My dad's a doctor and a university lecturer, and my mom doesn't work in paid employment. In other words, I'm from a petit-bourgeois background. The professional middle class, as it were. The fact that I'm in part-time paid employment is irrelevant to my class status.

Does your dad own the doctor business? If not, he is a professional worker, and you're very much from a proletarian background.


But I tend to use a definition roughly along these lines instead - "The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labour power (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour-power) and does not draw profit (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#surplus-value) from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death,whose sole existence depends on the demand for labour...

The following features of Marx’s definition of the proletariat should be noted: (1) proletariat is synonymous with “modern working class”, (2) proletarians have no means of support other than selling their labour power, (3) their position makes them dependent upon capital, (4) it is the expansion of capital, as opposed to servicing the personal or administrative needs of capitalists, which is the defining role of the proletariat, (4) proletarians sell themselves as opposed to selling products like the petty-bourgeoisie (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/e.htm#petty-bourgeois) and capitalists, (5) they sell themselves “piecemeal” as opposed to slaves who may be sold as a whole and become the property of someone else, (6) although the term “labourers” carries the connotation of manual labour, elsewhere Marx makes it clear that the labourer with the head is as much a proletarian as the labourer with the hand, and finally (7) the proletariat is a class (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/l.htm#class).
The proletariat is not a sociological category of people in such-and-such income group and such-and-such occupations, etc., but rather a real, historically developed entity, with its own self-consciousness (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/e.htm#self-consciousness) and means of collective action. The relation between an individual proletarian and the class is not that of non-dialectical sociology, in which an individual (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/i/n.htm#individual) with this or that attribute is or is not a member of the class. Rather, individuals are connected to a class by a million threads through which they participate in the general social division of labour (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#division-labor) and the struggle over the distribution of surplus value (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#surplus-value).

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/p/r.htm

Simplification of class relations? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/simplification-class-relations-t73419/index.html)

[Joe Hill's Ghost]

My dad's a doctor and a university lecturer, and my mom doesn't work in paid employment. In other words, I'm from a petit-bourgeois background. The professional middle class, as it were. The fact that I'm in part-time paid employment is irrelevant to my class status. Does your father own his practice? Or does he draw a wage? Does he have the power to hire and fire? If he draws a wage and isn’t in a hire/fire position, he’s not really “middle class” (whatever that nonsense means). He’s in a contradictory class position of sorts, since while he is a worker; he is a highly paid, very prestigious worker. Some might call him coordinator class, if they follow the parecon model.

Regardless, your work is just as determinant as your family. Class is about physical relations, when you work a shitty job, and you challenge that, you are engaging in working class struggle. Class isn’t some caste you’re born into; it’s much more fluid than that. If your father is a professional worker and you are a worker, then you’re pretty much working class. A bit contradictory, but pretty close.


Ideally. But I tend to use a definition roughly along these lines instead - "The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labour power (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/l/a.htm#labour-power) and does not draw profit (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/u.htm#surplus-value) from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death,whose sole existence depends on the demand for labour... Ideally? I hope you’re just taking the piss.

This is a pretty horrible definition of the working class. Workers have investments and saving of some sort, either for retirement, a house, or college education. Workers invest trillions into the capital markets. What makes a worker a worker is the fact that these petty investments make up a minority of their income. Unless you receive a sizable minority or majority of your income from capital, you can be working class. Now those who must work, but have significant investments are usually managers or small business owners of some sort. But the fact remains, many working people have capital investments. I for example have a savings account which draws interest. Is this deriving income from capital? If so, does that boot me out of the working class?


I havn't seen any evidence of that yet. No student I've spoken to about this has spat in my face yet, and the polytech students were actually a lot more positive about it than their uni counterparts, agreeing totally and saying that uni students are generally a bunch of "elitist pricks", as one guy put it. Yeah you know why? Because you’re talking to the student left, the most guilt addled population ever derived on the planet. Ever talk to a non political student about it? Yeah good luck there…


I don't know how many more times I'll have to say it, but this is not about guilt tripping people. I couldn't give two shits whether people feel guilty about their class background - I know I don't. This is about raising slogans that will actually challenge the petit-bourgeois, liberal consciounsess that dominates on campuses and that links the demands of students with the struggles of workers, and shows that the two groups class interests are fundamentally aligned. 1.Yes you probably do, otherwise you wouldn’t be a Maoist.
2.Students from working class backgrounds who work part time, and will enter the full time workforce, can already be revolutionary, as they are part of the working class. If they are not part of the working class, it’s pretty difficult to mobilize them en mass for revolutionary ends. That’s like squaring a circle.


Why the fuck would workers feel any resentment at a revolutionary socialist saying that student's are kept in their classes through the labour of that cleaner in the hallway and those roadworkers on the street below? It's an objective fact, and one that the left on campus generally neglects to point out. If you leave uni and go back into the working class, of course you don't need to do anything for them - you are one of them. But if you leave uni and become a lawer or an architect or whatever, you shouldn't be able to swan off into you're flash house and high salary and forget about the people who made it possible. Under socialism, you'll be required to repay the debt you owe the working class, and that's a demand we should raise. Can I make it any more clear? You are wrong on a number of counts here. First of all, most students are entering work full time and are from working class backgrounds. Many of them already work part time. They do not owe something to their own class. They only owe solidarity in struggle. Second, those who go on to become business managers, business owners and the like are not going to feel a debt to working people. They derive their comfort by screwing workers over, guilting them really doesn’t work. Finally, the economic category of “student” is not something that will survive the revolution. A student in a capitalist society is usually a worker who must consume educational resources in order to meet labor qualifications. After the revolution this sort of thing will go the way of the dodo.


Objectively all students are - you're not covering all the costs related to you're education. It's being paid for out of surplus-value, either private (through scholarships etc) or public, by the state. I'm not saying this to be mean and nasty, I'm simply pointing out the facts This is unequivocally wrong. Like I have said before, there are many universities where tuition makes up the vast majority of the budget. My university is 95 percent dependent on tuition. The university runs on surplus value derived from students, not some other group of workers.

Also this ignores the fact that the costs of education are not a privilege hoisted upon a minority, but an entitlement and right to all. Tertiary education should be seen as part of the cost of raising a child. Just like we don’t hold children accountable for eating family dinner, and living in their parents house, nor should we deride students as parasites, when they are about to enter the workforce full time.

Thirdly, you have just consigned the unemployed and those on the dole to petit bourgeois status. There are large sections of the working class that are out of work for prolonged periods of time. Many of these sections receive subsidies from the state. Students receive this in the form of grants and scholarships, the unemployed receive benefits, and the extreme poor receive welfare payments. Using your tortured definitions, these people are all parasites.

Though your greatest folly is your inability to see how poorly these ideas match up with student populations worldwide. American students come out of university with thousands of dollars of debt. They do not feel like they owe society something, as they already have paid dearly for their education. Some of my friends will get stuck in a lifelong cycle of precarious borrowing because of this system; I will never tell them they owe community service. They’d laugh at my absurdity, just as I laugh at yours.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Does your father own his practice? Or does he draw a wage? Does he have the power to hire and fire? If he draws a wage and isn’t in a hire/fire position, he’s not really “middle class” (whatever that nonsense means). He’s in a contradictory class position of sorts, since while he is a worker; he is a highly paid, very prestigious worker. Some might call him coordinator class, if they follow the parecon model.

That's what I don't like about the parecon class "analysis" (in spite of my Chapter 2 remarks). The only way doctors are "coordinators," even if they can't hire or fire, is due to their coordination of one or two nurses' work in their collective activity (akin to office supervisory work, perhaps). If the "coordinator" status is based on income, then the "analysis" is bogus.

[Rawthentic]

Way to hijack the importance of this thread.

Can a mod please move all the irrelevant posts?

[Saorsa]

Way to hijack the importance of this thread.

Can a mod please move all the irrelevant posts?


Sorry :( But it is an interesting debate, you must admit.

I'll post a reply to this a wee bit later.